19 Bible Verses About Healing for Body and Heart
These are Bible verses about healing: for a sick body, a broken heart, and the long stretch when healing has not come yet. Each passage comes with one line on who is speaking and why it matters here. Some tell of healing given, some are honest prayers from people still hurting, and some look ahead to the day when every wound is mended.
Bible verses for healing when you are sick
saying, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
Exodus 15:26 · BSB
Spoken to Israel at Marah, just after crossing the sea, when bitter water had been made fit to drink. The promise comes inside a call to listen, given to a people learning to trust.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds— He who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with loving devotion and compassion,
Psalm 103:2–4 · BSB
The heading links this psalm to David, who talks to his own soul about not forgetting. Christians pray it at sickbeds because it holds the body's needs and the soul's needs together.
Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for You are my praise.
Jeremiah 17:14 · BSB
Jeremiah prays this while mocked and opposed for his message. It is a short, honest cry anyone can borrow when they have no other words for what they need.
Suddenly a leper came and knelt before Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Matthew 8:2–3 · BSB
A man with a skin disease that cut him off from community comes to Jesus doubting not his power but his willingness. Jesus answers by reaching someone others kept at a distance.
When the woman heard about Jesus, she came up through the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she kept saying, “If only I touch His garments, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
Mark 5:27–29 · BSB
A woman ill for twelve years, who had spent everything on doctors, pushes through a crowd to reach Jesus. Her story speaks to anyone worn out by long illness and quiet, private hope.
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.
James 5:14–16 · BSB
The letter tells a church what to do when someone is ill. Christian traditions practice the anointing differently, but all read it as a call not to suffer alone.
For he has been longing for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. He was sick indeed, nearly unto death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.
Philippians 2:26–27 · BSB
Paul writes about Epaphroditus, a coworker who nearly died of illness while serving him. Paul does not hide his own grief, and he counts the recovery as mercy, not something earned.
Beloved, I pray that in every way you may prosper and enjoy good health, as your soul also prospers.
3 John 1:2 · BSB
An elder's greeting to his friend Gaius, a warm wish rather than a promise. It shows that caring about someone's body and soul together is a natural Christian prayer.
Healing for a broken heart
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Psalm 147:3 · BSB
Sung as Jerusalem was being gathered and rebuilt after exile. The next verse turns to God counting the stars: the same God stoops to the most personal wounds.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.
Psalm 34:18 · BSB
The heading ties this psalm to David's escape from a king's court, when he feigned madness to survive. It comes from someone who knew fear and humiliation from the inside.
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners,
Isaiah 61:1 · BSB
The prophet speaks as one sent with good news to exiles. Jesus read this aloud in Nazareth and said it was fulfilled in him, so Christians hear it as his own mission.
Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Matthew 11:28–29 · BSB
Jesus speaks to people weighed down by demands they could never meet. It is an invitation for the worn-out heart, not only the sick body.
What if God doesn't heal me?
Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am frail; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are in agony. My soul is deeply distressed. How long, O LORD, how long? Turn, O LORD, and deliver my soul; save me because of Your loving devotion.
Psalm 6:2–4 · BSB
The heading links this lament to David, praying from anguish of body and mind without a tidy answer. Its place in Scripture says honest complaint is itself a form of prayer.
or because of these surpassingly great revelations. So to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:7–9 · BSB
Paul asked three times for relief from an affliction he never fully names, and it stayed. Many who live with ongoing illness hold onto what he found instead.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that is far beyond comparison. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16–18 · BSB
Paul writes to a church that watched his body wear down under hardship. He does not pretend the decline isn't real; he sets it inside a longer story that suffering does not get to finish.
God's promise of complete healing
Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:4–5 · BSB
Part of a song about a suffering servant, which the New Testament reads as pointing to Jesus. Christians differ on how much of this healing is promised now and how much awaits the end.
“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like calves from the stall.”
Malachi 4:2 · BSB
From the last chapter of the Old Testament, looking ahead to a coming day of God. For the faithful who were weary of waiting, the prophet pictures that day as joy and restoration.
“‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4 · BSB
John's vision of the new creation, where God lives among his people. It is the final answer to every illness and grief that is not healed in this life.
Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the main street of the city. On either side of the river stood a tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and yielding a fresh crop for each month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:1–2 · BSB
The Bible's closing vision echoes the garden of Eden, now opened to every people. Healing turns out to be where the whole story of Scripture is heading.
Choose one passage and pray it today, word for word, for yourself or for someone who is ill, or send it to them with a short note that you are thinking of them. If you or someone you love is seriously ill or in danger, please reach out now to a doctor, a counselor, a local church or emergency services. They can help.
Questions people ask
Does God still heal today?
Christians widely believe God still heals, sometimes through prayer, sometimes through medicine and care, and sometimes in ways no one can explain. Traditions differ on how and how often this happens. Most agree that seeking medical help and praying for healing belong together.
If I am not healed, does it mean my faith is too weak?
No. Paul prayed repeatedly and his affliction stayed, and faithful people throughout Scripture were sick. Lack of healing is not a verdict on your faith. The Bible meets people in their suffering and promises that it will not have the last word.
How can I pray for someone who is sick?
Pray simply and honestly, the way the psalms do, naming what hurts and asking for help. Ask for healing, for good care from doctors, and for peace while you wait. Let the person know you are praying, and stay near them in practical ways too.
Chosen with AI help and reviewed by Miguel Ridruejo Mendoza before publishing. Bible quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), in the public domain. How we write.