Introduction
Healing occupies a central place in the Bible: God presents himself there as the one who heals bodies, binds up broken hearts, and promises complete restoration to those who hope in him. Here are 25 Bible verses about healing, quoted word for word, organized into five themes: the promises of the LORD who heals, the healing of the broken heart, Jesus as healer of bodies and souls, healing through faith and prayer, and the promises of complete restoration for the future. Each reference links to the full text on BibleGateway, so you can read each verse in its context and meditate on it at your own pace.
The LORD Who Heals: His Name, His Promise
Even before healing a body, God reveals himself through his name: the one who heals. These verses lay the foundation for all the others: healing is not an accident, it belongs to the very character of God.
1. Exodus 15:26
“He said, “If you will diligently listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you.””
Israel has just crossed the Red Sea and discovers, in the wilderness, a God who presents himself for the first time as a healer. Here, God attaches healing to his own name, like a covenant promise. Read Exodus 15:26.
2. Jeremiah 30:17
“For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds,” says Yahweh; “because they have called you an outcast, saying, ‘It is Zion, whom no man seeks after.’ ””
Jeremiah announces this promise to Zion, a wounded city that no one seems to care about anymore. God personally commits to binding up what people have abandoned. Read Jeremiah 30:17.
3. Jeremiah 17:14
“Heal me, O Yahweh, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved; for you are my praise.”
The prophet himself prays for his own healing, acknowledging that only God can make it complete. This verse invites us to turn the promise into a personal prayer. Read Jeremiah 17:14.
4. Malachi 4:2
“But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out, and leap like calves of the stall.”
The last prophet of the Old Testament ends on this luminous image: healing comes with the rising of the sun of righteousness. It is a promise for the future, addressed to those who fear God in the midst of a discouraged generation. Read Malachi 4:2.
5. Psalm 107:20
“He sends his word, and heals them, and delivers them from their graves.”
This psalm recounts several distresses experienced by the people, each followed by a cry and a deliverance. Here, it is God’s own word that becomes the instrument of healing. Read Psalm 107:20.
The Healing of the Broken Heart
The Bible never reduces healing to the body. These verses speak of the weary soul, the broken heart, the crushed spirit, and God’s closeness in these moments.
6. Psalm 34:18
“Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.”
David writes this psalm after a period of great danger, in which he experienced fear and humiliation. From it he draws the lesson that God’s closeness is never as real as it is in inner distress. Read Psalm 34:18.
7. Psalm 147:3
“He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.”
This psalm praises God for his power over creation, just before recalling his tenderness toward broken hearts. The same hand that counts the stars also binds up the deepest wounds. Read Psalm 147:3.
8. Psalm 6:2
“Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am faint. Yahweh, heal me, for my bones are troubled.”
David prays here out of an exhaustion that touches both his body and his soul. This cry shows that we can ask God for healing without polished words, simply by naming our weakness. Read Psalm 6:2.
9. Psalm 41:4
“I said, ‘Yahweh, have mercy on me! Heal me, for I have sinned against you.’”
In this psalm, David’s illness is accompanied by an examination of his own heart before God. The healing of the soul is requested here before that of the body, as a prerequisite. Read Psalm 41:4.
10. Isaiah 61:1
“The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit is on me, because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those who are bound,”
Isaiah here announces the mission of a messenger of God, anointed to bring good news to the brokenhearted. Jesus will later apply this text to himself, reading it in the synagogue at Nazareth. Read Isaiah 61:1.
Jesus, Healer of Bodies and Souls
The Gospels show Jesus continually stopping before sick people, often forgotten by everyone else. These verses connect his cross to the healing he offers, yesterday and today.
11. Isaiah 53:5
“But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.”
Isaiah describes in advance a suffering servant, wounded in place of a people who will not recognize him right away. This verse links, for the first time, the suffering of this servant to the healing of those for whom he suffers. Read Isaiah 53:5.
12. Matthew 8:17
“that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘He took our infirmities, and bore our diseases.’”
Matthew writes this right after an evening when Jesus healed many sick people brought before him. The evangelist sees in these healings the concrete fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Read Matthew 8:17.
13. Mark 5:34
“He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be cured of your disease.’”
A woman who has been sick for twelve years has just touched Jesus’ garment in the crowd, in secret. Jesus brings her out of anonymity to give her a public word of peace and healing. Read Mark 5:34.
14. Luke 4:18
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed,”
Jesus reads this passage from Isaiah in the synagogue of his hometown, then declares that it is fulfilled that day before them. He thus defines his own mission as one of comprehensive healing, of body and heart. Read Luke 4:18.
15. John 5:6
“When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been sick for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’”
A man has been waiting for thirty-eight years near a pool reputed to heal, never managing to get in in time. Jesus’ question reminds us that healing begins with a desire we dare to voice before him. Read John 5:6.
Healing Through Faith and Prayer
After Jesus’ resurrection, his disciples continue to exercise healing in his name, through faith and through prayer. These verses show a church learning to rely on God’s power, even in weakness.
16. Acts 3:6
“Then Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have, that I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!’”
Peter and John encounter a man crippled from birth begging in front of the temple. They have nothing to offer him materially, but they give him far more in the name of Jesus. Read Acts 3:6.
17. James 5:15
“and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
James gives the church a concrete instruction here: call the elders to pray over the sick person. Healing is presented as the fruit of a prayer carried out in community, not only in isolation. Read James 5:15.
18. 1 Peter 2:24
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness. You were healed by his wounds.”
Peter writes to scattered believers going through real suffering because of their faith. He links their healing, as in Isaiah 53, to the wounds of Christ on the cross. Read 1 Peter 2:24.
19. Romans 8:11
“But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
Paul speaks here of the new life given by the Spirit to believers who still carry a mortal, fragile body. This promise shifts our gaze toward the final resurrection, without which no healing is complete. Read Romans 8:11.
20. 2 Corinthians 12:9
“He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.”
Paul has just asked God three times to remove a persistent physical trial, without receiving it. This answer from God shows that healing sometimes takes the form of sufficient grace rather than immediate deliverance. Read 2 Corinthians 12:9.
The Promises of Complete Restoration
The Bible ends by looking beyond the healing of a single day: it promises total restoration, for individuals as for all of creation.
21. Psalm 30:3
“Yahweh, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.”
David composes this song after coming through a serious trial he thought he would not survive. From it he keeps a song of praise for a healing that literally brought him back to life. Read Psalm 30:3.
22. Isaiah 58:8
“Then your light will break out as the morning, and your healing will appear quickly; then your righteousness shall go before you, and Yahweh’s glory will be your rear guard.”
Isaiah addresses this promise to a people rediscovering fasting and justice toward the poorest among them. The healing promised here springs up as a consequence of a life turned toward God and toward others. Read Isaiah 58:8.
23. Joel 2:25
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you.”
Joel speaks to a people who have just gone through a locust invasion that devoured everything in its path. God here promises to restore not only the harvests, but the years themselves, as if they had never been lost. Read Joel 2:25.
24. Revelation 21:4
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.””
John here describes the new city where God will finally dwell fully with his people. It is the ultimate promise: a world where healing will never again need to be asked for, because pain itself will have disappeared. Read Revelation 21:4.
25. Revelation 22:2
“in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
This final vision of the Bible shows a tree of life whose leaves still serve for healing, this time on the scale of entire nations. It is an image of hope that closes the Bible with the same promise it opened with in Exodus 15:26: God heals. Read Revelation 22:2.
Further reading
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Bible say about physical healing?
The Bible presents God as the one who heals bodies, from Exodus 15:26 all the way to Jesus’ healings in the Gospels. Jesus heals the sick out of compassion (Mark 5:34, John 5:6), and the church continues this practice through prayer (James 5:15, Acts 3:6). Physical healing is neither automatic nor magical: Paul himself experienced an unhealed trial, to which God responds with his grace (2 Corinthians 12:9).
What does the Bible say about inner healing and the broken heart?
Several psalms affirm that the LORD is near the brokenhearted and heals those whose spirit is crushed (Psalm 34:18, Psalm 147:3). Isaiah announces that a messenger of God would come precisely to heal these hearts (Isaiah 61:1), a mission Jesus will take up for himself at Nazareth (Luke 4:18). Inner healing often comes through honest prayer, like David’s in Psalm 6:2.
How can I use these verses for meditation and prayer?
You can choose one verse a day, read it slowly in its context via the BibleGateway link, then turn it into a personal prayer, as Jeremiah does in Jeremiah 17:14. For memorization, start with the shortest verses (Psalm 107:20, John 5:6) before tackling the longer passages. These verses can also be prayed together with others, following the model of James 5:15.
to take notes and ask questions.