These Bible Verses For Repentance are for anyone ready to turn back to God, whether after one serious failure or a long season of drifting. Many are prayers of confession you can pray word for word, like David’s Psalm 51. Others are promises that God hears the humble and forgives those who return. Let them guide your words as you come home to Him.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
Psalms 51:1-4 (KJV)
David’s confession after his sin owns the wrong fully and appeals to God’s lovingkindness.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
Psalms 51:10-12 (KJV)
A prayer for a clean heart, a right spirit and the joy of salvation when turning back to God.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Psalms 51:17 (KJV)
God will not despise a broken and contrite heart, which is what repentance brings Him.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)
When God’s people humble themselves, pray and turn from wicked ways, He promises to hear and forgive.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9 (KJV)
Confession is met with God’s faithfulness to forgive and cleanse from all unrighteousness.
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalms 139:23-24 (KJV)
Asking God to search your heart and lead you in the way everlasting is a good start to repentance.
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
Psalms 32:5 (KJV)
David stopped hiding his sin, acknowledged it to the Lord, and was forgiven.
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
Proverbs 28:13 (KJV)
Covering sins brings no prosperity, but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
James 4:8-10 (KJV)
James urges us to draw near to God, cleanse our hands and humble ourselves, trusting He will lift us up.
O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.
Hosea 14:1-2 (KJV)
Israel is invited to return to the Lord and bring words of confession, asking Him to take away iniquity.
Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
Lamentations 3:40-41 (KJV)
Jeremiah calls us to examine our ways and lift our hearts to God in heaven.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Isaiah 1:18 (KJV)
God invites the repentant to reason with Him, promising scarlet sins can become white as snow.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Luke 18:13 (KJV)
The tax collector’s humble plea for mercy is a model for a repentant heart.
For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.
Psalms 38:18 (KJV)
David resolves to declare his iniquity and be sorry for his sin.
Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God.
Jeremiah 3:22 (KJV)
God calls backsliding children to return and promises to heal their backslidings.
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
Acts 3:19 (KJV)
Repenting and turning to God brings the blotting out of sins and times of refreshing.
For thy name’s sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.
Psalms 25:11 (KJV)
For the sake of the Lord’s name, David asks pardon for his great iniquity.
Acts 3:19 works well prayed by naming the specific thing you are turning away from, asking for genuine change, not only regret.
If you want to keep reading, Bible Verses About Forgiving Yourself and Bible Verses About Faith Over Fear sit close to this topic.
Want the wider context? The complete King James Version is available at Blue Letter Bible.
You might also turn to Bible Verses For Relationships and Love and Bible Verses For Healing and Faith.
Bible Verses For God's Promises and Bible Verses For Healing are good companions to this page.
Bible Verses For Identity in Christ and Bible Verses For Protection from Evil pick up threads that run through these verses.
Bible Verses For Grace and Forgiveness and Bible Verses About Grace and Forgiveness explore related themes.
Comparing translations can help, and Bible Gateway does that for free.
Bible Hub collects commentary on every verse if you want to study one more closely.
Return to this verse as part of an ongoing, genuine turning, not a single moment of feeling sorry.
Repentance, biblically defined, means an actual turning — a genuine change of direction, not merely feeling sorry or regretful about something while continuing the same course. This distinction matters directly. If you have felt regret about something without any accompanying change in direction, this fuller definition suggests something more is being described — an actual turn, not only an emotional response.
What would an actual change of direction look like for you right now, specifically, connected to whatever you are repenting of? Naming that concrete change is part of what repentance, biblically understood, actually involves.
2 Corinthians 7:10 distinguishes godly sorrow that leads to repentance from worldly sorrow that only produces death — genuine repentance is described as ultimately leading toward life and joy, not remaining stuck in prolonged sorrow indefinitely. If your own experience of repentance has felt stuck in ongoing sorrow without eventual relief, this verse suggests something further is available — sorrow that leads somewhere, not sorrow that becomes a permanent state.
Scripture describes repentance itself as something God grants and enables, not purely a matter of sufficient personal willpower alone. If genuine repentance has felt difficult to produce on your own, this framing suggests praying directly for the capacity to repent, not only trying harder to repent through your own effort alone.
If something specific has been on your conscience, consider naming it directly and honestly, then identifying one concrete change of direction connected to it — not vague general resolve, but a specific, actionable turn. This directness, applied to your actual situation, is consistent with how repentance is described throughout Scripture.
Whatever specific pattern or action you are currently repenting of, these verses are meant to be read as direct address to that actual situation, not distant theology for someone else’s easier struggle. Name it honestly, and let these verses speak directly into that real turning.
Needing to return to this list more than once does not reflect insufficient faith. It reflects the honest, ongoing nature of repentance as a repeated turning, not a single completed event finished once and never revisited.
Whatever tomorrow brings, this same call to turn remains available then too, offered fresh again rather than already spent by today’s honest effort.
Rest in that today, and take the next honest step, one at a time.
Share this list with someone else who is also trying to turn from something today, letting your own honest effort become encouragement for theirs, offered freely rather than kept private.
You do not have to have it all figured out to begin.
Just the next honest step, today.
That is enough.
Someone else has stood at a similar turning point and found the strength to take that first honest step, not because they felt fully ready, but because they took it anyway.
Zacchaeus was the chief among the publicans in Jericho, and he was rich. Luke 19 tells how he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see Jesus, because he was little of stature. Jesus stopped beneath that tree, called him by name, and said He must abide at his house that day. The crowd murmured that Jesus had gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. Notice the order. Zacchaeus heard the welcome before he had changed anything. Grace reached him first, and his turning came as a response to it.
What he said next is one of the clearest pictures of repentance in the Gospels: “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold” (Luke 19:8). He did not stop at feeling bad. He named the wrong and promised to repair it generously. That is the kind of change so many Bible Verses For Repentance point toward. Jesus answered, “This day is salvation come to this house” (Luke 19:9).
Read beside his story, the Bible Verses For Repentance collected above take on hands and feet. Proverbs 28:13 speaks of confessing and forsaking sin, and Zacchaeus shows what forsaking can look like when money, relationships and reputation are all on the line.
A week of slow reading can help repentance settle into ordinary life instead of staying a single emotional moment. Read one passage each morning, pray it back to God in your own words, and write one sentence about what it asks of you that day. This plan pairs a few Bible Verses For Repentance already listed here with the longer stories that surround them, so you see real people turning back to God. Reading Bible Verses For Repentance inside their stories keeps them from feeling abstract.
Among these Bible Verses For Repentance and the passages around them, pick one that stood out during the week and copy it onto a card. Keep it where you will see it the following week, because turning to God is meant to continue after the plan ends.
Some people know they need to repent but freeze when it is time to speak. The prayer below borrows its shape from several Bible Verses For Repentance, especially Psalm 51, Psalm 139:23-24 and 1 John 1:9. Pray it slowly. Where you see a pause, stop and name the specific thing before God rather than hurrying past it. There is no special formula here, only honest words offered to a Father who already knows your heart.
Father, I come to You because You invite me to come. Look into my heart and show me what is really there. Show me what I have been hiding, even from myself. (Pause and name it.) I will not make excuses. I have sinned against You, and I have hurt others too. Thank You for Your promise to forgive and cleanse me when I confess instead of hiding.
Make my heart clean, Lord, and set a steady, faithful spirit inside me. Show me one concrete step of turning I can take today, and give me the courage to take it. Where I need to make something right with another person, prepare the way. Give me back the gladness of being Yours, and lead me on the path that goes on forever with You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
If praying this feels heavy, that is not a sign it failed. Many Bible Verses For Repentance speak of a broken and contrite heart, and Psalm 51:17 promises that God will not despise it. Come back to this prayer whenever you need it, because the exact words matter far less than the honest turning behind them. For more help putting honest words before God, the collection of Bible verses about prayer offers further models.
Repentance toward God often leads to a conversation with a person. Jesus said that if you bring your gift to the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, you should leave the gift, “first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). That is hard teaching, and it helps to prepare before you pick up the phone or knock on a door. Several Bible Verses For Repentance can shape both your heart and your words for that moment.
Psalm 139:23-24 is a good place to begin, because it asks God to show you what really happened before you explain it to anyone else. Proverbs 28:13 keeps you from covering the wrong with softened language. James 4:10 reminds you that humbling yourself is safe in God’s hands, even when the other person is not yet ready to respond.
Keeping a few Bible Verses For Repentance written down before the conversation can steady you if emotions rise. Afterward, whatever the outcome, thank God for the grace to take that step. For a teaching overview of what Scripture says on this subject, see Bible verses about repentance and turning back to God.
Psalm 51 is easier to understand once you know what came before it. The heading in our Bibles ties it to the day the prophet Nathan confronted David over Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. Nathan did not open with an accusation. He told a story about a rich man who took a poor man’s only lamb, and David, furious, said the man deserved to die. Then came the sentence nobody forgets: ‘Thou art the man.’ David had spent months acting as though nothing had happened, and a few words from one honest friend ended the pretending.
His answer in 2 Samuel 12:13 is strikingly short: ‘I have sinned against the LORD.’ Nathan replied that the LORD had put away his sin, though the consequences within his family would still unfold. Both halves matter. Mercy was real, and so was the damage. Psalm 51 is what the king wrote from inside that tension, beginning, ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.’
When you pray these lines, remember that they came from a man with no good excuse and no way to undo what he had done. He did not bargain. He asked for mercy on the strength of God’s character, not his own record. Among the Bible Verses For Repentance, this psalm may be the clearest example of someone who stopped managing his image and simply let the truth be said out loud.
Jesus told a short story in Luke 18 that I picture every time I read verse 13. Two men go up to pray. One is a Pharisee, respected and careful, who thanks God that he is not like other people. The other is a tax collector, probably hated by his neighbors, and he will not even come close to the front. Luke says, ‘And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.’
Count the words of that prayer. There are only eight. No promises, no list of reasons, no attempt to compare himself to anybody. He gives the plainest possible account of who he is and what he needs. Jesus then says that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. The prayer worked because it was honest and aimed at God, not because it was long or polished.
I think of a woman I once sat with in a hospital cafeteria, who told me she had no idea how to pray after years of staying away from church. I suggested she start with those eight words. She laughed a little, then cried, then said them quietly over a paper cup of coffee. It was not a dramatic scene. Still, it was a real beginning. If the longer psalms feel out of reach today, there is room in Scripture for a prayer this small.
Lamentations was written after Jerusalem fell, with the temple burned and neighbors scattered or dead. Out of that grief comes a surprising line in 3:40: ‘Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.’ Notice the order. The writer has not stopped weeping, yet he suggests an honest look at the road behind them, together, with the word ‘us’ carrying the weight. Repentance here is a shared act of a wounded community and not a private scolding.
Hosea 14 comes from a different moment but a similar spirit. The prophet is speaking to a people who have chased other loves, and he hands them the actual words to say: ‘Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously.’ Think about how kind that is. God does not leave them guessing about how to approach him. He supplies the sentences, as a parent might coach a nervous child before an apology.
These two passages help when the damage is already done and you wonder whether returning is pointless. Jeremiah 3:22 offers the same open door: ‘Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.’ That is a promise about the future and not a denial of the past. The ruin at your feet may be genuine, and turning back still counts. Often the first step looks like a quiet prayer and one honest phone call, nothing grander than that.
Something in Psalm 32 reads almost like a medical report from the inside of a guilty conscience. David writes in verse 3, ‘When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.’ He is describing how heavy it felt to carry what he had not confessed. Then comes the turn in verse 5: ‘I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.’ The relief arrives in a single breath.
Proverbs 28:13 gives the same lesson in the dry style of a wisdom teacher: ‘He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.’ Two verbs are paired there, confess and forsake. Admitting a wrong while planning to keep doing it misses half the verse, and so does quitting a behavior while pretending it never happened.
A gentle caution, though. Confessing to God does not always mean announcing everything to everyone. Some things are best shared with one wise person, a pastor or a counselor who knows how to keep a confidence. If your guilt feels crushing or keeps returning after you have honestly confessed, that is worth talking through with a trained professional, since the weight may involve more than a single sin. James 4:8 tells us, ‘Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you,’ and that closeness can be pursued with a wise helper at your side.
Other collections you may find useful: Bible Verses About Repentance, Bible Verses About Faith, Bible Verses About Hope, Bible Verses About Love and Bible Verses About Strength.
To study these verses in more depth, try Bible Gateway, Bible Hub and Bible Study Tools.
Acts 3:19 works well prayed by naming the specific thing you are turning away from, asking for genuine change, not only regret.
This page brings together 16 King James Version references about repentance, drawn from 11 different books of the Bible.
These repentance verses are drawn from books including Acts, 2 Corinthians, Luke, Proverbs, 2 Samuel, among others.
Yes. The verses about repentance gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Proverbs 28:13 and Acts 3:19.
Acts 3:19 is one of the verses about repentance referenced in this collection, alongside 2 Corinthians 7:10.
