21 KJV Bible Verses About Sorcery

Exodus 22:18

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

Reflection: The Hebrew word translated witch is a form of kashaph, to practise sorcery. The same verb names the sorcerers Pharaoh called in Exodus 7:11, who “did in like manner with their enchantments.” The next two verses carry the same penalty, for lying with a beast and for sacrificing to any god “save unto the LORD only” (22:19-20).

Leviticus 19:31

“Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.”

Reflection: The command comes in a chapter of laws that repeats “I am the LORD” after its commands. Five verses earlier, Leviticus 19:26 forbids related practices: “neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.” The reason this verse gives is defilement: seeking out a medium or a wizard makes the seeker unclean.

Leviticus 20:6

“And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.”

Reflection: Chapter 19 forbade consulting mediums; this verse states what happens to the person who consults them. God will “set my face against that soul” and cut him off, and the phrase “go a whoring after them” counts the consulting as unfaithfulness to God. The medium or wizard is dealt with separately in Leviticus 20:27: “they shall stone them with stones.”

Deuteronomy 18:10-11

“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.”

Reflection: Moses gives the list as Israel is about to enter the land, warning them not to “learn to do after the abominations of those nations” (18:9). It names nine practices, starting with making a child “pass through the fire”, and covers divination, observing times, charms, witchcraft, familiar spirits and the necromancer who consults the dead.

Deuteronomy 18:12

“For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”

Reflection: The verse calls the practices an abomination to the LORD and gives them as the reason God is driving the nations out ahead of Israel. Verses 14 and 15 set out what Israel has instead. The nations “hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners”, but God “will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.”

1 Samuel 15:23

“For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”

Reflection: Samuel says this to Saul after Saul failed to carry out the command about Amalek, the failure 1 Samuel 28:18 names again. The verse before sets the terms: “to obey is better than sacrifice.” Witchcraft is the comparison Samuel reaches for, and the rejection of God’s word costs Saul the kingdom.

1 Samuel 28:7

“Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.”

Reflection: Saul himself had “put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land” (28:3). Facing the Philistines, he asked the LORD and had no answer, “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets” (28:6), so he went to the woman at Endor in disguise and by night. She reminds him of his own ban and asks why he is laying “a snare for my life” (28:9). In the account that follows, Samuel tells Saul that the kingdom has gone to David and “to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me” (28:19).

2 Kings 9:22

“And it came to pass, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, Is it peace, Jehu? And he answered, What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?”

Reflection: Joram asks Jehu whether he comes in peace, and Jehu answers with a charge against Joram’s mother, Jezebel: her “whoredoms” and her “witchcrafts” are many. There can be no peace, he says, while they continue. Nahum 3:4 pairs the same two words against Nineveh.

2 Chronicles 33:6

“And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.”

Reflection: Manasseh, who reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem (33:1), practised six of the things Deuteronomy 18:10-11 forbids: passing his children through the fire, observing times, enchantments, witchcraft, familiar spirits and wizards. Later in the chapter the Assyrians carried him to Babylon in fetters, where he “humbled himself greatly” and prayed, and God “brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom” (33:12-13).

Isaiah 8:19

“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?”

Reflection: Isaiah answers people who urge consulting mediums and wizards “that peep, and that mutter” with two questions: should a people not seek their God, and should the living go to the dead? Verse 20 gives the test: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

Isaiah 47:12

“Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail.”

Reflection: Isaiah 47 is addressed to the “virgin daughter of Babylon” (47:1). Verse 9 has already announced loss of children and widowhood “for the multitude of thy sorceries”, and here Babylon is told to stand with its enchantments and see whether they help. Verse 13 extends the challenge to “the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators.”

Micah 5:12

“And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand; and thou shalt have no more soothsayers:”

Reflection: The chapter addresses “the remnant of Jacob” (5:7-8), and from 5:10 it lists what God will cut off from them “in that day”: horses, chariots, cities and strongholds, then witchcrafts and soothsayers in this verse, and graven images and groves in 5:13-14. The verse is a promise to remove sorcery from the remnant.

Nahum 3:4

“Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.”

Reflection: Nahum’s prophecy is against Nineveh (3:7), pictured as a harlot and “the mistress of witchcrafts”. Whoredoms and witchcrafts are named together as the means by which she “selleth nations” and families.

Malachi 3:5

“And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.”

Reflection: The verse follows the promise that the Lord will come suddenly to his temple, “like a refiner’s fire” (3:1-2). Sorcerers stand first in the list of those he will witness against, ahead of adulterers, false swearers, and those who cheat workers of their wages, oppress widows and orphans, and turn away the stranger.

Acts 8:9

“But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:”

Reflection: The Greek verb for “used sorcery” is mageuo, to practise magic. Simon had held the people of Samaria for a long time, and they called him “the great power of God” (8:10). When Philip preached, they believed and were baptized, and Simon did too (8:12-13). Later he offered the apostles money for the power to give the Holy Ghost, and Peter told him to repent, “if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee” (8:22).

Acts 13:8

“But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.”

Reflection: At Paphos, Paul and Barnabas met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Barjesus, also called Elymas, who was with the deputy Sergius Paulus. The Greek is magos, magician. When Elymas tried to turn the deputy from the faith, Paul called him a “child of the devil”, and he was struck blind “for a season” (13:10-11). The deputy believed, “being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord” (13:12).

Acts 19:19

“Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.”

Reflection: At Ephesus, many who believed came and “confessed, and shewed their deeds” (19:18). Those who had practised “curious arts”, a Greek word used of magic, burned their books in public, and the books’ value came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. The next verse adds: “So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”

Galatians 5:19-21

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Reflection: Paul lists witchcraft among “the works of the flesh”, between idolatry and hatred, and warns that “they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” The Greek word is pharmakeia. Strong’s gives its senses as the use of drugs, potions and enchantments, then poisoning, and by extension the occult and witchcraft. The next verses set the fruit of the Spirit against the list: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance.”

Revelation 9:21

“Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”

Reflection: After the plagues of Revelation 9, the survivors “repented not” of worshipping devils and idols (9:20). This verse adds four more things they did not repent of: murders, sorceries, fornication and thefts.

Revelation 18:23

“And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”

Reflection: An angel throws a millstone into the sea as a sign that “that great city Babylon” will be thrown down (18:21), and the verses list what will cease in her: music, craftsmen, the millstone, lamps, weddings. The verse ends with the reason: “by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.” In the KJV, Isaiah 47:9 and 47:12 also charge Babylon with “thy sorceries”.

Revelation 21:8

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Reflection: Sorcerers appear in this list with murderers, idolaters and “all liars”, and their part is “the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone”, which the verse calls the second death. Revelation 22:15 names sorcerers again among those who are “without”, outside the city.