14 Bible Verses About Resentment

Leviticus 19:18

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

Reflection: The ban on grudges sits in the same verse as “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” the command Jesus places second after loving God (Matthew 22:37-39). The verse before it gives the alternative to a grudge: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor” (19:17).

Ephesians 4:31

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”

Reflection: Bitterness heads Paul’s list, followed by wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice, and the church is to put all of them away. A few verses earlier he allows anger but limits it: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (4:26). The next verse gives what takes their place: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (4:32).

Hebrews 12:15

“See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.”

Reflection: The warning follows “Strive for peace with everyone” (12:14), and the first danger it names is failing to obtain God’s grace. “Root of bitterness” echoes Deuteronomy 29:18, which warns against “a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit,” a person whose heart turns from the Lord to other gods. Hebrews keeps the sense of one person spreading trouble to many, “by it many become defiled,” and the next verse names Esau (12:16).

Genesis 4:6-7

“The LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it.’”

Reflection: Cain’s anger comes when the Lord has regard for Abel’s offering and not for his, and “his face fell” (4:5). God answers with questions and a warning: sin is crouching at the door, and Cain must rule over it. The next verse shows that he did not; he speaks to Abel in the field and kills him (4:8).

Luke 15:28-30

“But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’”

Reflection: The older son comes in from the field to music and dancing for a brother who had squandered his share of the property (15:13, 25). His complaint is years of service with no reward, and he will not call the younger man his brother, only “this son of yours.” The father goes out to him, as he had run out to the younger son (15:20), and answers, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (15:31). The parable ends without saying whether the older son went in.

Proverbs 20:22

“Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.”

Reflection: The proverb forbids even the sentence “I will repay evil” and gives a promise in its place: “wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.” Proverbs 24:29 forbids the same plan in other words: “I will do to him as he has done to me.”

Romans 12:19

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”

Reflection: The verse sits in a run of commands about enemies: “Bless those who persecute you” (12:14), “Repay no one evil for evil” (12:17), and “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (12:18). Paul’s reason is a quotation from Deuteronomy 32:35, “Vengeance is mine,” and the passage ends with feeding a hungry enemy and overcoming evil with good (12:20-21).

1 Peter 2:23

“When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”

Reflection: Peter wrote this to servants who were suffering under unjust masters (2:18-20), and he gave them Christ as the example to follow in their own suffering (2:21). Reviled, Jesus did not revile in return; suffering, he made no threats. What he did instead was to keep entrusting himself to “him who judges justly.”

1 Peter 3:9

“Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.”

Reflection: Addressed to “all of you” (3:8), this carries the example of 2:23 to the whole church and goes a step further: the answer to reviling is a blessing. Peter supports it with the words of Psalm 34, quoted in the next three verses: “let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it” (3:11).

Proverbs 19:11

“Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.”

Reflection: The proverb joins two things: good sense makes a person slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. The offense is real, and the proverb counts letting it pass as honor to the one who was wronged.

Colossians 3:13

“…bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Reflection: Paul’s word is “complaint,” a grievance one believer holds against another. The instruction is to bear with one another and forgive, with the Lord’s forgiveness as the measure. The next verse puts love over everything else, “which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (3:14).

Matthew 18:21-22

“Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.’”

Reflection: Peter asks whether seven times is enough, and Jesus answers seventy-seven. The parable that follows explains why: a servant forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents seizes and chokes a fellow servant over a hundred denarii, and his master hands him over to the jailers (18:23-34). Jesus ends it, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (18:35).

Matthew 6:14-15

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Reflection: Jesus says this directly after the Lord’s Prayer, as a comment on one line of it: “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (6:12). It is the one petition he stops to explain, and he states it both ways: forgive others and the Father forgives you; refuse, and he will not.

Matthew 5:23-24

“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Reflection: Here the grievance belongs to the other person: “your brother has something against you.” Jesus has just put anger and insults toward a brother under judgment (5:21-22), and he tells the worshiper to leave the gift at the altar and be reconciled first. The next saying asks for the same speed: “Come to terms quickly with your accuser” (5:25).