These Bible verses for courage and strength are for the moments when your knees feel weak and the road ahead looks hard. They carry God’s own words to Joshua, David and Paul, reminding them that he stays near, holds them up and gives strength for each day. Read them slowly, pray them back to God, and let them steady you for what comes next.
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
Joshua 1:9 (KJV)
God commands Joshua to be strong and brave because the Lord goes with him wherever he goes.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
Isaiah 41:10 (KJV)
A promise to hold onto when afraid: God says he will strengthen, help and uphold you with his righteous hand.
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Deuteronomy 31:6 (KJV)
Moses tells Israel not to fear their enemies, since the Lord will never fail or forsake them.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalms 27:1 (KJV)
David asks whom he should fear when the Lord himself is his light, salvation and strength.
Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.
Psalms 27:14 (KJV)
Waiting on the Lord is linked here with courage, and God promises to strengthen the waiting heart.
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Philippians 4:13 (KJV)
Paul says he can face anything through Christ, who keeps giving him strength.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31 (KJV)
Tired people are promised renewed strength, rising like eagles and running without growing weary.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
Psalms 46:1-3 (KJV)
Even if the earth shakes and mountains fall into the sea, God remains a refuge and present help.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)
Fear does not come from God; he gives power, love and a sound mind instead.
And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.
1 Chronicles 28:20 (KJV)
David urges Solomon to be strong and get to work, because God will not leave until the task is done.
Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
Psalms 31:24 (KJV)
Everyone who hopes in the Lord is told to take courage, and he will strengthen their heart.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (KJV)
When we feel weakest, Christ’s grace is enough, and his power shows most clearly.
Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Nehemiah 8:10 (KJV)
Nehemiah reminds a grieving people that the joy of the Lord is their strength.
My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
Psalms 73:26 (KJV)
Though body and heart may fail, God stays the strength of the heart forever.
The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.
Habakkuk 3:19 (KJV)
The prophet compares God’s strength to sure feet that let him walk steadily on high places.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
Ephesians 6:10 (KJV)
Paul’s closing charge: be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?
Psalms 118:6 (KJV)
With the Lord on his side, the psalmist says he will not fear what anyone can do.
Joshua 1:9 works well prayed by naming the specific situation, asking for both courage and strength grounded in God’s presence.
Bible Verses About God's Peace and Bible Verses About Prayer and Protection pick up threads that run through these verses.
All Scripture here is quoted from the King James Version, which you can read in full at Blue Letter Bible.
Bible Verses For Family Unity and Bible Verses For True Love are good companions to this page.
Two nearby collections worth opening next are Bible Verses For Stress and Bible Verses For Protection.
This subject overlaps with Bible Verses About Faith and with Bible Verses For Career.
For a related angle, see Bible Verses For Courage and Faith or Bible Verses About Courage and Faith.
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 you continue facing your situation with both courage and strength.
These two qualities appear together repeatedly, almost as a single combined instruction rather than two entirely separate requirements — be strong and of good courage, spoken directly and repeated across multiple contexts. This consistent pairing suggests they function best together. Strength without courage can remain unused, held in reserve without ever being applied; courage without strength can falter partway through a difficult task.
If you have been praying for one without the other, consider whether your specific situation genuinely calls for both together, as Scripture so often frames them.
Much of Scripture’s instruction toward courage and strength is tied to a specific assignment or task, not offered as a vague, general encouragement disconnected from any particular responsibility. If you are facing a specific assignment right now — a role, a decision, a responsibility you have been given — naming that assignment directly in prayer, asking for courage and strength specifically for it, tends to be more focused and useful than a general request.
Courage and strength often decline together rather than independently — when one is depleted, the other frequently follows. If you notice both fading at once, this connection is worth recognizing rather than treating them as two separate, unrelated problems requiring entirely different solutions. Addressing the underlying cause, whether exhaustion, isolation, or prolonged difficulty, tends to restore both together.
Rather than praying generally for courage and strength, name your specific current need for both directly — what exactly you are facing, and what exactly courage and strength would look like in that particular situation. This specificity, applied to your actual circumstances today, tends to produce more concrete, noticeable help than a broader, unfocused request.
Whatever assignment or decision currently requires both courage and strength from you, these verses are meant to be prayed directly over that actual task, not read only as general spiritual encouragement.
Return to this list before your next moment that requires both, letting it become part of your preparation rather than only something read after the fact.
Fear rarely disappears completely before courage and strength become possible. Move forward alongside it, not only after it has fully gone.
That first small step matters more than it currently seems.
Whatever it costs you to take it, take it anyway, trusting that both courage and strength will meet you exactly where they currently run out.
Someone watching you take this step, even without saying so, may draw their own quiet courage and strength from having witnessed it firsthand.
This plan pairs one short passage with one simple practice each day. It sets these verses beside the stories around them, so you can see the promises lived out by real people. Set aside ten or fifteen minutes, ideally at the same time each day, and keep a notebook nearby.
The second half of the week moves from remembering to acting.
Missed a day? Just continue from where you stopped. The plan is a help, not a test, and God’s strength is not measured by an unbroken streak. Some people find it useful to repeat the week right away, noticing how the same passages read differently the second time through.
At the end of the week, choose the passage that spoke most clearly and write it on a card for your pocket, desk or car. Of all the verses you read, the one you actually carry with you will serve you best.
Bible verses for courage and strength are not only for battles and big decisions. Some of the hardest courage is needed across a kitchen table or in a manager’s office: confronting a friend, admitting a mistake, speaking up for someone who is being treated unfairly, or telling family difficult news. Scripture speaks to these moments too.
Psalm 27:14 is a good starting place, because it ties courage to waiting on the Lord rather than rushing in. Ephesians 4:15 reminds believers to speak “the truth in love,” and Proverbs 15:1 says, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.” James 1:19 asks us to be “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” Paired with Joshua 1:9, these Bible verses for courage and strength keep boldness and gentleness together.
A simple way to put them to work:
Courage in a tense talk never requires harshness. When the king asked Nehemiah what he wanted, Nehemiah prayed to the God of heaven before answering (Nehemiah 2:4). His example shows that a quick, quiet prayer is always within reach, even halfway through a difficult exchange.
Sometimes it will. You can speak truthfully and gently and still meet anger or silence. Paul’s counsel in Romans 12 to live at peace with everyone, as far as it depends on you, quietly admits that peace is not in your hands alone. Your part is to be faithful, not to control the other person’s response. Give yourself time to recover, talk it over with a wise friend or pastor, and leave the result with God.
Turning Scripture into prayer has long been a practice of God’s people, from the psalmists onward. This prayer weaves several of these verses together. Pause after each paragraph to add your own words and name your own situation.
Lord, You told Joshua to be strong and of a good courage because You would be with him wherever he went. I bring You what I am facing today, and I ask You to be with me in it. I admit that I feel afraid, and I admit that I feel tired.
You promised to give power to the faint and to renew the strength of those who wait on You. I choose to wait on You now. Where I feel weak, let Your grace be sufficient and Your strength be made perfect. Give me a spirit of power, of love and of a sound mind instead of a spirit of fear.
Help me take the next step You ask of me, and help me be kind while I take it. Thank You that You will not fail me nor forsake me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
If you pray these Bible verses for courage and strength often, try writing your own version in a journal, with names and dates. Looking back months later, you may see how God answered in ways you did not notice at the time.
Children face real fears too: a first day at school, a doctor’s visit, a dark bedroom, or a friend who is suddenly unkind. Short, memorable Bible verses for courage and strength give them words to hold onto when a parent is not in the room.
Keep the focus on God’s presence rather than on being fearless. Children should hear that brave people still feel scared, and that God stays with them either way. Among the Bible verses for courage and strength, Deuteronomy 31:6 says this plainly: the Lord “will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
Routines help verses stick. A family might read one verse together at breakfast on school days, or end the day by sharing one moment when each person needed to be brave. Parents who admit their own fears, and show how they bring them to God, often teach more than any lesson plan can.
For older children or teens facing heavier pressure, verses for strength in difficult times and verses for courage and faith give you more to read and talk through together.
The heading over Psalm 57 and Psalm 142 places David in a cave, running from King Saul with a small band of desperate men. The line in Psalm 27, ‘The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?’, may come from the same hard stretch of life, though the text does not say. What we can say is that the man who wrote it knew what it meant to sleep with one ear open.
Look at how the psalm moves. Verses 1 to 3 sound bold, an army camped around him and his heart still unafraid. Then verses 7 to 12 turn quiet and almost pleading: hear, have mercy, hide not thy face, forsake me not. Courage and neediness sit in the same poem. David does not think they cancel each other.
The last verse is the one I would pin to a refrigerator door: ‘Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD’ (Psalm 27:14). Notice the repeated wait. It reads like a man talking himself down off a ledge. Sometimes the brave thing is not to act at all, but to stay put, keep praying and refuse to make a panicked decision at midnight.
Isaiah 40 was spoken to people sitting in the ruins of their old life, deported far from Jerusalem and wondering if the God of their grandparents had forgotten them. Verse 27 gives their complaint directly: my way is hid from the LORD. The answer is a long, almost leisurely description of a Creator who never gets tired, whose understanding nobody can measure.
Only then do we reach the famous promise: ‘they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint’ (Isaiah 40:31). The order is odd. Flying, running, walking. You would expect a climb from slow to fast. Instead it ends with walking, the plainest pace of all.
Plenty of us need exactly that ending. Some seasons do not call for soaring. They call for putting one foot ahead of the other on a Tuesday, getting the children to school, answering the email. Strength that lets you keep walking without fainting is no smaller a gift than a sudden flight, and it is probably the one most of us will use more often.
Paul begged the Lord three times to remove what he calls a thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-8). We are never told what it was, and guessing has filled shelves with theories. That silence may be deliberate, because it lets nearly every reader find their own thorn in the story: a chronic ache, a temperament, a habit of failure that will not budge.
The reply he received was not what he asked for. ‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Corinthians 12:9). Paul then does something startling and says he will rather glory in his infirmities. He is not praising pain. He is describing what he found when the thorn stayed and the help still came.
A caution belongs here. Nothing in this passage tells a person to stop seeking treatment, skip the doctor or avoid medication. Paul himself kept a physician friend nearby, as Colossians 4:14 mentions Luke. The point is that when relief is delayed or never arrives, strength can still be given for the day, and the sufferer has not been judged weak for needing it.
Asaph, one of the temple musicians, opens Psalm 73 with a confession that sounds almost modern. He had watched the arrogant prosper, with healthy bodies, easy lives and no visible trouble, and his feet had nearly slipped. He admits he had cleansed his heart in vain, or so it felt. Few psalms are so frank about the temptation to quit.
The turn comes in verse 17, when he walks into the sanctuary and begins to see where it all ends up. From there his tone settles, and he lands on a line worth memorising: ‘My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever’ (Psalm 73:26). Notice that he does not say his flesh and heart stopped failing. They failed. God was the strength underneath the failure.
That honesty is useful. If you are worn out by comparing your struggling year with someone else’s smooth one, this psalm gives you permission to say so out loud. It also shows where the shift happens, not in a better argument but in a changed location. Asaph went somewhere he could be reminded who God is, and his courage came back from there.
Psalm 46 opens with strength and refuge in the same breath, then describes the worst picture the writer could think of: the earth removed, mountains carried into the sea, waters roaring. The conclusion is a calm one. ‘Therefore will not we fear’ (Psalm 46:2). The word therefore does the heavy lifting. Fear is declined because of who God is, not because the shaking is small.
A shorter verse makes a good companion, Psalm 118:6: ‘The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?’ Both verses were sung by communities, not just read in private, which is worth remembering. Bravery in Scripture is often a shared thing, voiced in a crowd of people holding each other up.
So if your own ground is moving, a layoff, a family rupture, a bad report, you do not have to manufacture a calm voice alone. Say these lines with someone, or ask a friend to say them over you. Then take the next ordinary step. A prayer in plain words fits too: Lord, my legs feel thin and my mind is racing; be my refuge today, and show me one thing I can do before dark.
Other collections you may find useful: Bible Verses About Strength and Courage, Bible Verses About Courage and Strength, Bible Verses For Strength and Courage, Bible Verses For Strength During Hard Times and Bible Verses For Strength.
To study these verses in more depth, try Bible Gateway, Bible Hub and Bible Study Tools.
Joshua 1:9 works well prayed by naming the specific situation, asking for both courage and strength grounded in God's presence.
This page brings together 15 King James Version references about courage and Strength, drawn from 12 different books of the Bible.
These courage and Strength verses are drawn from books including Joshua, 1 Samuel, Esther, Isaiah, Acts, among others.
Yes. The verses about courage and Strength gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Joshua 1:9 and Acts 4:23.
Joshua 1:9 is one of the verses about courage and Strength referenced in this collection, alongside Joshua 1:1.
