Bible verses about praying for others show that intercession is not an optional extra but part of ordinary Christian love. From Moses pleading for Israel to Jesus praying for Peter, Scripture pictures God’s people carrying one another before His throne. These passages explain why we pray for others and what that kind of prayer looks like.
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
1 Timothy 2:1-4 (KJV)
Paul urges prayers and intercessions for all people, including rulers, because God desires everyone to be saved.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
James 5:16 (KJV)
Believers are told to confess to one another and pray for one another, since earnest prayer from a righteous person accomplishes much.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Ephesians 6:18 (KJV)
Prayer here is continual and outward-facing, reaching beyond ourselves to all the saints.
And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Job 42:10 (KJV)
After all his suffering, Job prayed for the friends who had wronged him, and the Lord restored him.
Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way:
1 Samuel 12:23 (KJV)
Samuel counted it a sin against the Lord to stop praying for the people in his care.
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27 (KJV)
Even our intercession is carried by the Spirit, who prays for the saints according to God’s will.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
Hebrews 7:25 (KJV)
Christ himself lives forever to make intercession, the model behind every prayer we offer for others.
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.
Luke 22:31-32 (KJV)
Jesus told Peter he had prayed that his faith would not fail, showing prayer for a friend facing testing.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
John 17:20-21 (KJV)
In his high priestly prayer Jesus prayed not only for his disciples but for all who would later believe.
Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word:
Numbers 14:19-20 (KJV)
Moses pleaded for a rebellious people, and God answered that he had pardoned them according to that prayer.
Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.
Acts 12:5 (KJV)
While Peter sat in prison, the church kept praying to God for him without ceasing.
Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
Colossians 4:12 (KJV)
Epaphras is remembered for laboring fervently in prayer that his friends would stand complete in God’s will.
And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.
Ezekiel 22:30 (KJV)
God looked for someone to stand in the gap on behalf of the land, a picture of intercession.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Matthew 5:44 (KJV)
Jesus extends prayer for others even to enemies and those who treat us badly.
Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2 (KJV)
Carrying one another’s burdens, including in prayer, fulfills the law of Christ.
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy,
Philippians 1:3-4 (KJV)
Paul’s memories of his friends turned into joyful prayer for them every time he prayed.
Scripture presents praying for others as a normal duty of faith. Paul asks that supplications, prayers and intercessions be made for all people, including those in authority (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Samuel went further, calling it a sin to stop praying for the people God had given him (1 Samuel 12:23). Intercession flows from love: when we cannot fix another person’s situation, we can still bring them to the One who can.
The Bible also gives vivid examples. Moses stood between God and a rebellious nation and asked for pardon (Numbers 14:19-20). Job prayed for the very friends who had misjudged him, and God restored his fortunes (Job 42:10). The early church prayed without ceasing while Peter was in prison (Acts 12:5), and Jesus told Peter he had prayed that his faith would not fail (Luke 22:32).
Behind all of this stands Christ himself, who lives to make intercession for His people (Hebrews 7:25), and the Holy Spirit, who helps us when we do not know what to pray (Romans 8:26). Our prayers for others are small echoes of that greater intercession, and Jesus even asks us to include those who oppose us (Matthew 5:44).
James 5:16’s instruction to “pray one for another, that ye may be healed” ties intercessory prayer directly to healing within a community.
Bible Verses For Prayer and Strength and Bible Verses For Children's Protection are good companions to this page.
Each passage is quoted from the KJV, and Blue Letter Bible has the whole text if you want the surrounding chapter.
For a related angle, see Bible Verses About Romantic Love or Bible Verses About Depression.
This subject overlaps with Bible Verses About Comfort and with Bible Verses About Hope.
You might also turn to Bible Verses About Business and Bible Verses About Being Strong.
Bible Verses About Answered Prayer and Bible Verses For Praying for Others explore related themes.
Bible Gateway makes it easy to compare a verse across several English translations.
Bible Hub offers commentary and cross-references for each verse.
Praying for others is treated in Scripture as a core practice, not a lesser form of prayer than praying for yourself.
These verses were never meant to sit on a page as decoration \u2014 they’re meant to shape how you actually respond the next time you don’t always know what to pray for someone else going through something hard.
You don’t need polished or formal language for it \u2014 an honest, plainly worded sentence is enough, something as simple as telling God directly for the right words to pray over someone else’s situation.
When God revealed His plan to judge Sodom, Abraham did not simply accept the news; he stepped forward and began to reason with God, asking whether the righteous would be swept away with the wicked. He asked if God would spare the city for fifty righteous people, then bargained the number downward step by step, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, until he asked God to spare it for the sake of just ten. This exchange is one of the most direct Bible Verses About Praying for Others found anywhere in the Old Testament.
Each time, God agreed to Abraham’s request, showing patience with a man who kept pressing rather than settling for silence. Though Sodom was ultimately destroyed for lacking even ten righteous people, Abraham’s persistence models one of the boldest examples of intercession in Scripture, a reminder that praying for people we may never meet is still worth the honest, repeated asking, even when the outcome remains uncertain.
Daniel had not personally committed the worst offenses of his people, yet when he understood from Jeremiah’s writings that seventy years of exile were nearly complete, he set his face toward God with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. His prayer did not separate himself from the nation’s guilt; he confessed the sins of Israel using the words we and our, standing with people whose failures he had not caused, and pleading with God on their behalf regardless.
Daniel asked God to hear, forgive, and act, not for his own sake but for the sake of the city and people called by God’s name. This long, humble prayer stands among the most selfless Bible Verses About Praying for Others in the Old Testament, showing that intercession sometimes means owning a burden that was never personally yours to carry alone in the first place.
A woman from the region of Tyre and Sidon came to Jesus crying out for mercy, not for herself but for her daughter, who was severely afflicted. At first Jesus did not answer her at all, and His disciples urged Him to send her away because of her persistent crying. When Jesus finally spoke, His words sounded discouraging, comparing the children’s bread to what should not be thrown to dogs.
The woman did not walk away offended; she humbly replied that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. Jesus praised her great faith and healed her daughter from that very hour. Among Bible Verses About Praying for Others, this account shows a parent’s prayer refusing to quit even when the answer seemed slow or unlikely to come at all, right up until the very moment it changed everything.
During Israel’s battle against Amalek, Moses stood on a hill holding up the rod of God, and as long as his hands stayed raised, Israel prevailed in the fighting below. When his arms grew tired and began to sink, the tide of battle shifted toward Amalek instead.
Aaron and Hur noticed what was happening and acted immediately, bringing a stone for Moses to sit on and each holding up one of his hands until sunset, when Israel finally won. Neither Aaron nor Hur fought in the battle themselves; their contribution was simply holding someone else steady long enough for victory to come. This quiet partnership offers a practical picture among Bible Verses About Praying for Others, showing that supporting someone else’s effort can matter as much as the effort itself, even when no one is watching closely or keeping score of who helped.
Lord, bring to my mind right now the people You want me to carry before You today, whether they know I am praying or not. Give me Abraham’s persistence when the need feels too large, Daniel’s willingness to own a burden that was not his fault, the Canaanite mother’s humility when the answer feels slow, and the readiness of Aaron and Hur to simply hold someone else steady without needing credit for it. These Bible Verses About Praying for Others teach me to keep praying for others even when the answer takes time. Amen.
Many assume that praying for someone else is only meaningful if it comes with dramatic, eloquent words or an obvious immediate result. Abraham’s prayer for Sodom did not stop the judgment entirely, and the Canaanite mother had to wait through what felt like silence and even a hard word before her answer came.
Aaron and Hur did nothing that looked spiritual at all; they simply held up tired arms, and Daniel spent long hours in fasting before any answer came to him at all. Bible Verses About Praying for Others show that faithfulness in intercession is not measured by how impressive it sounds or how quickly it works, but by the willingness to keep showing up for someone else’s need, even quietly and without recognition from anyone around you.
Spend a week in these Bible Verses About Praying for Others, letting each story shape how you carry others in prayer.
Finish the week with these four readings.
Use these questions on Bible Verses About Praying for Others to reflect after your reading each day this week.
A few more questions worth sitting with:
Choose one person each day and pray for them specifically instead of offering a vague, general blessing, naming the actual situation they are facing as best you understand it. Follow Abraham’s example by not giving up after the first request if the need is still pressing days later, and follow Daniel’s example by owning a need even when it was not caused by you personally.
Consider also becoming an Aaron or Hur for someone, offering practical help alongside your prayer rather than prayer alone. For more encouragement on these Bible Verses About Praying for Others, read Bible Verses For Praying for Others and Bible Verses About Praying Without Ceasing for further guidance on sustaining prayer for the people God has placed in your life, day after day.
Read the last chapter of Job slowly and notice the order of events. God has finished speaking from the whirlwind, and Job’s three friends are standing there in the wrong. They spent chapters lecturing a grieving man, and God says plainly that they have not spoken rightly. Then comes the strange instruction: Job is to pray for them. The man they wounded becomes their priest.
The text is short and easy to rush past. ‘And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends’ (Job 42:10). Look at the sequence. His fortunes turn while he is praying for them, not before. I have sat with people who were waiting for the hurt to be explained before they would pray for anyone, and Job gives no support to that plan. His questions were never answered the way he wanted. He prayed anyway.
It would be wrong to say that praying for someone who wronged you makes everything pleasant again. Job still carried his scars. But there is a loosening that happens when you name a person before God by name and ask for their good. The grudge stops being the only thing you say about them. Try it with one person this week, even if the words come out stiff and short.
Paul closes his letter to Colossae with greetings, and tucked among them is a sentence about a man named Epaphras. He is described as ‘always labouring fervently for you in prayers’ (Colossians 4:12). The Greek word behind ‘labouring’ is the same family of words used for an athlete straining in a contest. Nobody wrote that about a man who mumbled a quick blessing before bed.
Epaphras came from Colossae himself. He had carried the gospel there, then traveled to be with Paul, and while he was away from home his church was heavy on his mind. Imagine him in a rented room, far from the people he loved, saying their names one at a time. He could not fix their arguments or mend their doubts from that distance. He could pray, and he did it until it cost him something.
Most of us will never be mentioned in a letter that ends up in the Bible. Still, there is a quiet kind of faithfulness in being the one who keeps asking when others have moved on to other concerns. The aim Epaphras held was specific: that his friends would stand mature and settled in what God wanted. If you are praying for a son who has drifted or a coworker who is struggling, borrow that kind of aim. Pray for steadiness, and then keep praying after the urgency fades.
The account in Acts 7 is hard to read. Stephen has been dragged outside the city, and stones are flying. Somewhere in the crowd a young man named Saul is minding the coats of the people throwing them. Stephen, bleeding and kneeling, makes two requests. The first is for himself: ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ The second is for them. He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge’ (Acts 7:60).
Think about how close this sits to what Jesus taught on a hillside, ‘Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you’ (Matthew 5:44). Stephen had heard that teaching secondhand, and when the worst moment came, he did not have to invent something new. The habit was already in him. That is worth pausing over, because nobody can call up forgiveness from nothing in a crisis.
Many of us will never face a mob. We face the cold coworker, the relative who tells the story of our failure at every holiday, the neighbor whose dog and fence and attitude wear us down. Praying for them is a small rehearsal of the same instinct. Start with a plain request that God would be good to them and would deal with them gently, as he has dealt with you. You will not feel warm about it at first. Stephen probably did not feel warm either. He prayed because he trusted who was listening.
Israel had demanded a king, and Samuel took it personally. For years he had judged them, traveled the circuit, and warned them. Now they wanted a man on a throne instead. When the people finally admit they have sinned, Samuel does not scold them again. He says something unexpected: ‘God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you’ (1 Samuel 12:23).
Notice how he words it. Stopping prayer is described as a sin, a failure toward God and not merely an unkindness to the people. Samuel could have walked away with a clear conscience. They had not listened, and he had the right to be hurt. Yet he sees prayer for them as something he owes.
I think about teachers and parents who have reached that exhausted place, the one where you have said everything and the other person has heard none of it. There is a temptation to call the silence wisdom. Sometimes the only thing left to do is the thing Samuel kept doing. He also promised to keep teaching them ‘the good and the right way’ in the same breath, so prayer did not replace honest words. The two went together. If you have nothing new to say to someone you love, you can still keep saying their name to God, and you may do that for years without anyone knowing.
Picture a hospital waiting room at two in the morning. The vending machine hums, a television is playing with no sound, and somebody you love is behind a set of double doors. You want to pray, but your mind is a blank. Every sentence you start falls apart. You feel almost guilty for how little comes out.
Paul wrote to people in that exact condition. ‘Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered’ (Romans 8:26). Read it twice. Our weakness in prayer is not treated as a problem to be scolded. It is treated as the very place where God steps in. The verses that follow say the Spirit prays in line with the will of God, which means your empty-handed sighing is not wasted.
So in that waiting room, a short prayer is enough. Say the name. Say, ‘Lord, you see this, and I do not know what to ask.’ Sit there and let the silence be part of it. Later, when your head clears, you can pray more carefully and ask for specifics, such as skilled hands for the surgeon or peace for the family. If a long stretch of fear, grief, or worry has settled on you, it is also good to talk with a pastor, a counselor, or a friend who will sit with you, because carrying someone else’s crisis is heavy work.
Nearby topics worth a look: Bible Verses For Praying for Others, Bible Verses About Praying for Each Other, Bible Verses For Loving Others, Bible Verses About Loving Others and Bible Verses About Comparing Yourself To Others.
If you want to dig further, Blue Letter Bible, Bible Gateway and Bible Hub are good places to start.
Scripture presents praying for others as a normal duty of faith. Paul asks that supplications, prayers and intercessions be made for all people, including those in authority (1 Timothy 2:1-2).
This page brings together 14 King James Version references about praying for Others, drawn from 13 different books of the Bible.
Yes. The verses about praying for Others gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as 1 Samuel 12:23 and 1 Timothy 2:1.
1 Timothy 2:1 is one of the verses about praying for Others referenced in this collection, alongside 1 Samuel 12:23.
Yes, the verses referenced on this page, including 1 Timothy 2:1, are quoted according to the King James Version (KJV), and are suitable for daily reading, memorization, or devotional use.
