99 Fun Facts About Bible Verses

Which famous verse follows 'Lord, come and see' as Christ nears the tomb of Lazarus?

Jesus wept is John 11:35, and soon after Jesus has the stone taken away and calls Lazarus out of the tomb alive.

Which line opens the verse Tim Tebow wore on his eye black in January 2009?

For God so loved the world opens John 3:16, and after Tebow's eye black some 90 million people searched Google for the verse.

Which word completes 'The Lord is my ___; I shall not want', the opening line of Psalm 23?

Shepherd suits the psalm's traditional author, David, who was out keeping his father's sheep when the prophet came to anoint him.

What does 1 Timothy 6:10 actually call 'the root of all evil'?

The love of money is the root in the King James text, not money itself, and it warns that some who coveted it 'pierced themselves through with many sorrows'.

Which saying first appeared in Butler's 1663 mock-epic Hudibras rather than the Bible?

Spare the rod, spoil the child is Butler's coinage; the Bible's nearest line says only 'He that spareth his rod hateth his son'.

Which book's third chapter, 'To every thing there is a season', became Pete Seeger's 'Turn! Turn! Turn!'?

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 supplies every line of the song except the title and the last two, and the Byrds took it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1965. Seeger said he wrote it in 1954.

In which Tarantino film does hitman Jules Winnfield recite a paraphrased 'Ezekiel 25:17' before shooting?

Pulp Fiction's speech matches Ezekiel 25:17 only at the end: the real verse is one line about vengeance, and the opening sentences are stitched from other biblical phrases.

Which US agency's headquarters lobby bears 'And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free'?

The CIA's Old Headquarters Building has John 8:32 engraved on a marble wall at the request of Allen Dulles, the former Director of Central Intelligence. The Langley complex is named for George H. W. Bush.

Which Senate candidate built an 1858 Springfield speech around 'A house divided against itself cannot stand'?

Abraham Lincoln was quoting Mark 3:25, where Jesus answers the charge that he casts out devils by the prince of devils. The campaign failed against Stephen Douglas but led to the famous debates between them.

Which Peanuts character recites 'Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings' in A Charlie Brown Christmas?

Linus recites Luke 2 because Charles Schulz insisted on it, though his producers warned that you couldn't read from the Bible on network television.

Which command, the first divine words in the Bible, comes in Genesis 1?

Let there be light comes in Genesis 1:3, yet the sun and moon aren't made until the fourth day; the Latin Vulgate renders it 'fiat lux'.

In the psalm behind Boney M.'s 'Rivers of Babylon', the weeping exiles remember which place?

Zion is what the exiles weep for in Psalm 137, while their captors demand 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion'.

Which animal 'shall dwell with the lamb' in the peaceable-kingdom prophecy where 'a little child shall lead them'?

The wolf gets the lamb in the King James text, and the very next verse promises that 'the lion shall eat straw like the ox'.

In which book do the Ten Commandments first appear, delivered at Mount Sinai amid thunder and fire?

Exodus 20 gives them first, and soon after Moses smashes those first tablets over the golden calf, so God has him hew two new ones.

Who asked 'Am I my brother's keeper?' when God asked him where Abel was?

Cain was sentenced to wander for killing Abel, yet God set a mark on him so no one would kill him, and he went on to build a city.

Who said 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away' after raiders, fire and wind took his herds and children?

Job lost oxen, asses, sheep and ten children in a single day of arriving messengers, and still 'sinned not, nor charged God foolishly'. His restoration at the end of the book doubles his livestock.

Which petition follows 'Thy kingdom come' in the Lord's Prayer as Matthew records it?

Thy will be done follows in Matthew, but the NIV drops that line from Luke's shorter version, noting it only in some manuscripts.

Which letter Paul wrote in custody holds 'I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me'?

Philippians 4:13 was written by a prisoner thanking a church for a gift, which is why its boast sits right after 'I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content'. Philippi lay in Macedonia.

Which prophet told King David 'Thou art the man' after a parable about a rich man seizing a poor man's one lamb?

Nathan's trap closed when David condemned the rich man of the story, unaware he was judging his own taking of Bathsheba from Uriah. The prophet later helped secure the throne for Solomon.

Which prophet volunteered 'Here am I; send me' after a seraph touched his lips with a live coal from the altar?

Isaiah's commission in chapter 6 follows a vision of the Lord enthroned among six-winged seraphim crying 'Holy, holy, holy', the coal purging the sin of a man of 'unclean lips'. The scene is dated to the year King Uzziah died.

Which disciple was told 'Get thee behind me, Satan' for objecting to Jesus foretelling his own death?

Peter: in Matthew 16 the rebuke comes only verses after Jesus tells him 'thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church'.

When Jesus cried 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?', some bystanders thought he was calling whom?

Elijah, Elias in the King James text, was who they heard, and they waited to see 'whether Elias will come to save him'.

Psalm 119's 176 verses fall into 22 stanzas, one for each letter of which alphabet?

The Hebrew alphabet sets the pattern, which translation can't keep, and the King James Version marks it instead with stanza headings from ALEPH to TAU.

In which town's synagogue did Jesus quote 'Physician, heal thyself' before the crowd tried to throw him off a hill?

Nazareth was where Jesus had been brought up, and its congregation, told 'no prophet is accepted in his own country', led him to the brow of the hill to cast him down headlong. Luke says he simply passed through them.

Which coin did Jesus call for before answering 'Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's'?

A denarius with the head of Tiberius is the coin usually assumed, since the Greek calls it a dēnarion, and Jesus asked whose image it bore before answering. Pharisees and Herodians had posed the question to trap him.

Of what was the woman accused when Jesus said 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone'?

Adultery 'in the very act' was the charge, and the law of Moses prescribed stoning; the accusers drifted away one by one, eldest first. The whole passage is missing from the oldest Greek manuscripts of John.

At whose feast did a hand write 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin' on the wall, words Daniel read as the kingdom's doom?

Belshazzar was slain that very night, after drinking from gold vessels taken from the temple in Jerusalem, and Darius the Median took the kingdom.

To whom did Ruth vow 'Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people' on the road from Moab?

Naomi was Ruth's widowed mother-in-law, heading home to Bethlehem after losing her husband and both sons; her other daughter-in-law Orpah kissed her and turned back. Ruth's loyalty makes her great-grandmother of David.

Which boy, sleeping where the ark was kept, answered a night-time call with 'Speak; for thy servant heareth'?

Samuel had run to the old priest Eli three times, thinking it was he who called, before Eli realised the Lord was speaking and told the boy how to reply. He grew up to anoint Israel's first two kings.

Who heard 'Be strong and of a good courage' on taking command after Moses died, with the Jordan still to cross?

Joshua, son of Nun, heard the charge from God three times in the book's first chapter, with the promise 'the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest'. He had been one of the two spies who believed the land could be taken.

Which letter, written to Christians Paul had not yet visited, declares 'The wages of sin is death'?

Romans promises a visit on the way to Spain, but Paul finally reached Rome as a prisoner, living under a soldier's guard.

Which anonymous epistle defines faith as 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen'?

Hebrews was long counted among Paul's letters, yet doubts that he wrote it go back to the early church, and modern scholars mostly reject it.

Which short epistle warns of 'many antichrists' and states twice in a single chapter that 'God is love'?

1 John says its many antichrists had already walked out of the community: 'They went out from us, but they were not of us'.

Which book credited to Solomon warns 'Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall'?

Proverbs 16:18 is the line, and though the book's heading names Solomon, chapters 30 and 31 are credited to Agur and King Lemuel instead.

Which book of Moses first says 'Love thy neighbour as thyself', later Jesus's second great commandment?

Leviticus 19:18 sets it among laws against revenge and grudges, and in Luke a lawyer's reply, 'who is my neighbour?', prompts the Good Samaritan.

Which twice-daily Jewish prayer opens 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord'?

Shema's opening line is Deuteronomy 6:4, and the same passage says to speak these words when lying down and rising up and to write them on doorposts.

Which word completes 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his ___'?

Friends is the word in John 15:13, and the very next verse attaches a condition: 'Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you'.

What name do English speakers give to Matthew 7:12's 'do ye even so to them' teaching?

The Golden Rule has a negative twin in Hillel's reply to a gentile who asked to learn the whole Torah on one foot: 'That which is hateful to you do not do to another'.

Which word completes the King James Beatitude 'Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the ___'?

Earth is the promise, and Matthew's Jesus is quoting Psalm 37:11 almost word for word: 'the meek shall inherit the earth'.

Which seasoning did Jesus liken his followers to, fit only to be trodden underfoot once it has lost its savour?

Salt is the image in Matthew 5:13, straight after the Beatitudes, where savourless salt is 'good for nothing, but to be cast out'. Mint, anise and cummin are the herbs the Pharisees tithe so carefully in Matthew 23.

What does Jesus say sits in the hypocrite's own eye while he notices a mote in his brother's, in Matthew 7?

A beam against a mote is the joke behind 'Judge not, that ye be not judged': the hypocrite must cast out the beam first, and the NIV makes them a plank and a speck.

Which word completes 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they ___'?

Spin is the verb, and the next verse insists that 'even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these', the lesson being not to fret about raiment. The fowls of the air, which sow not, make the same point just before.

Faith as a grain of which seed, Jesus said, could tell a mountain 'Remove hence to yonder place' and be obeyed?

Mustard seed faith, Jesus told the disciples in Matthew 17:20, would mean 'nothing shall be impossible unto you', after they had failed to cure an epileptic boy. Elsewhere he calls it the least of all seeds.

Which word completes Jesus's warning 'Ye cannot serve God and ___' in Matthew 6?

Mammon is Aramaic for wealth, left untranslated in the Gospel, and medieval Christians came to treat it as the name of a demon of greed.

Which animal did Jesus say could pass through the eye of a needle more easily than a rich man enters God's kingdom?

A camel is the beast in Matthew 19:24, and the line so staggered the disciples that they asked 'Who then can be saved?'. Mark and Luke carry the same saying almost word for word.

Where did Jesus tell disciples who kept falling asleep 'The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak'?

Gethsemane, a place at the foot of the Mount of Olives, is where Jesus prayed three times while the disciples slept, asking 'could ye not watch with me one hour?' Judas arrived with the arresting party as he finished.

Near which city did Saul hear 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' and lose his sight for three days?

Damascus was where Saul had been heading with letters authorising arrests of Christians, and he was led into the city blind, neither eating nor drinking until Ananias restored his sight. The convert became the apostle Paul.

Which prophet wrote 'For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord' in a letter to exiles in Babylon?

Jeremiah 29:11 was sent from Jerusalem to deportees told to build houses, plant gardens and settle in for seventy years before any return. Ezekiel and Daniel were also among those exiles.

Who went out to meet Jesus and heard 'I am the resurrection, and the life' before he reached her brother's tomb?

Martha had gone out to meet him with the reproach 'Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died', and answered his question with a confession that he was the Christ. Her sister Mary stayed in the house.

Which fast-food chain has printed tiny Bible verse references on its cups and wrappers since the 1980s?

In-N-Out started the practice under its president Rich Snyder, a reflection of his family's evangelical faith. The citations sit in small print, for instance on the bottom of a drink cup.

Which NASA mission's crew read the opening verses of Genesis on television from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve?

Apollo 8 made the broadcast in 1968, with Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman taking turns at the first ten verses. Roughly a billion people, one in four then alive, listened.

Which Philadelphia landmark bears a jubilee verse about proclaiming freedom 'unto all the inhabitants thereof'?

The Liberty Bell owes its name to that verse: abolitionists of the 1830s read it as a call to free the enslaved and renamed what had been the State House Bell.

Which wrestler mocked a Bible-quoting rival at King of the Ring 1996 with a famous '3:16' boast of his own?

Steve Austin ad-libbed the boast after beating Jake 'The Snake' Roberts, who was then playing a born-again Christian. It twisted the best-known verse reference in the Gospels.

Which 1963 speech echoes the prophet Amos, 'let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream'?

I Have a Dream was given by a Baptist minister and moves in a preacher's cadences. The same verse from Amos is carved on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.

Which Handel oratorio opens its third part with the soprano air 'I know that my redeemer liveth'?

Messiah pairs the Old Testament verse with Paul's words on resurrection. Handel's memorial in Westminster Abbey shows the composer at work on the manuscript of this very air.

Which birds complete the promise that those who wait upon the Lord 'shall mount up with wings as ___'?

Wings as eagles is only the first of three pictures in the verse: those who wait shall also run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.

Which word completes Jesus's 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; ___, and it shall be opened'?

Knock is the third command, and each one carries its own promise. The next verse repeats all three: everyone who asks receives, the seeker finds, and to the one at the door it is opened.

Which food completes Jesus's reply to the tempter in the wilderness, 'Man shall not live by ___ alone'?

Bread was the dare itself: the tempter had told a fasting Jesus to turn stones into loaves. The reply borrows words Moses spoke about the manna that fed Israel in the desert.

What does God tell Adam 'thou art' and shall return to, in the sentence passed after the forbidden fruit?

Dust is still named each Ash Wednesday, when worshippers receive ashes on the head and are told to remember what they are and where they shall return.

Which word completes God's promise to Moses of 'a land flowing with milk and ___'?

Honey here may not be the bees' kind: rabbinic texts such as the Jerusalem Talmud read the Bible's honey as a thick, sweet syrup pressed from dates.

Which insect is the sluggard told to study, 'consider her ways, and be wise', in the Bible's wisdom sayings?

The ant wins the praise because she has 'no guide, overseer, or ruler' and still lays in her food in summer and gathers it at harvest.

Which word completes the prophet's question 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his ___'?

Spots turned proverbial through this verse. Its point was that a people long practised in doing wrong could no more switch to doing right than the animal could change its hide.

Which word completes a sufferer's cry, now an everyday idiom, 'I am escaped with the skin of my ___'?

Teeth gave Thornton Wilder a title too: his 1942 play The Skin of Our Teeth borrows the phrase, which has come to mean the narrowest of escapes.

Before which animals did Jesus warn against casting pearls, 'lest they trample them under their feet'?

Swine were unclean animals under Jewish law, so the picture is of treasure thrown to creatures that cannot value it. The same verse warns against giving what is holy to dogs.

Which word completes Jesus's 'whosoever shall smite thee on thy right ___, turn to him the other also'?

Cheek comes in Jesus's reply to 'an eye for an eye', the old law of equal retaliation, which he quotes in the verse before and then turns upside down.

Which word completes the weary Preacher's verdict that 'there is no new thing under the ___'?

Sun shines through the whole book: the phrase 'under the sun' appears twenty-nine times in it, framing each of the Preacher's weary observations on toil and time.

To whom did God say 'I do set my bow in the cloud' as the token of a lasting covenant?

Noah heard it as the flood waters dried. The bow is the rainbow, set in the sky as a sign that a flood would never again destroy every living creature.

Whom did David tell 'Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield'?

Goliath came in bronze armour with a shield-bearer walking ahead of him. David, who had turned down the king's armour, carried a staff, a sling and five smooth stones from a brook.

From what did God tell Moses 'I AM THAT I AM' when asked for a name to give the Israelites?

A burning bush that was never consumed drew Moses aside at Horeb. Before the name was given he was told to take off his shoes, for he stood on holy ground.

Who answered the angel Gabriel's news of a coming birth with 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord'?

Mary gave the answer only after asking how such a birth could be. Gabriel's reply included the news that her cousin Elisabeth, long thought barren, was six months pregnant in old age.

Which disciple, having demanded to see the print of the nails, was told 'blessed are they that have not seen'?

Thomas had missed the risen Jesus's first visit to the disciples and held out for eight days. The fourth Gospel adds that he was called Didymus, a name meaning the twin.

Which governor of Judaea asked Jesus 'What is truth?' and walked out without waiting for a reply?

Pontius Pilate went straight back to the crowd outside and declared 'I find in him no fault at all'. He then offered to free one prisoner for Passover, and they chose Barabbas.

To whom did Jesus promise 'To day shalt thou be with me in paradise' in Luke's account of Calvary?

A crucified thief had rebuked his fellow for mocking and asked only to be remembered. The Gospels never name him; a later apocryphal text called him Dismas.

Which parable ends with Jesus telling a lawyer 'Go, and do thou likewise'?

The Good Samaritan was Jesus's answer to the lawyer's question 'And who is my neighbour?'. In reply the lawyer could only say 'He that shewed mercy', without naming the foreigner.

Which parable's father rejoices over one who 'was dead, and is alive again', who 'was lost, and is found'?

The Prodigal Son comes home hoping for a hired servant's place and is given the best robe, a ring and the fatted calf. His older brother, angry, refuses to go in to the feast.

In which three-chapter address in Matthew does Jesus say 'Judge not, that ye be not judged'?

The Sermon on the Mount fills chapters 5 to 7 of Matthew and also holds the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer. Its title comes from a commentary by Augustine.

What name is given to the risen Jesus's closing command in Matthew, 'Go ye therefore, and teach all nations'?

The Great Commission was given on a mountain to the eleven remaining disciples, and Matthew ends his Gospel with its promise that Jesus would be with them always.

Beside which body of water did Jesus tell two brothers 'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men'?

The Sea of Galilee was where Simon and Andrew were casting a net when the call came. They left their nets at once, and a second pair of fishing brothers followed soon after.

Which name completes the prophecy 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name ___'?

Immanuel means 'God with us', as Matthew spells out when he quotes the verse in his account of the birth of Jesus. The sign was first offered to Ahaz, a king of Judah under threat.

Which prophet asked what the Lord requires 'but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly'?

Micah first imagines buying favour with thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil, then sweeps the whole offer aside with three plain demands.

Which word completes the question put to a prophet in a valley vision, 'Son of man, can these ___ live'?

Bones is right: Ezekiel replied only 'O Lord God, thou knowest', then watched the skeletons rattle together, bone to bone. His vision gave the spiritual Dem Bones its words.

Which letter of Paul lists nine qualities, from joy to temperance, as 'the fruit of the Spirit'?

Galatians sets the nine against a longer list of 'works of the flesh', then adds drily that 'against such there is no law'.

Which Old Testament book supplied 'What hath God wrought', the message that opened Morse's telegraph line in 1844?

Numbers gives the words to Balaam, a seer hired to curse Israel who blesses it instead. Annie Ellsworth suggested them to Morse, who tapped them from the Capitol to Baltimore.

Which reformer said that grasping the verse 'The just shall live by faith' was like being born again?

Martin Luther called the discovery his entry into paradise: the just person of the verse, he realised, lives by a faith that is God's gift. Paul took the line from Habakkuk.

Who asked Queen Esther whether she had 'come to the kingdom for such a time as this'?

Mordecai, the cousin who had raised her, was urging her to go unsummoned to the king and plead for the Jews, at the risk of death. Her reply ended 'if I perish, I perish'.

Which Pharisee, visiting Jesus by night, was told 'Ye must be born again'?

Nicodemus took it literally and asked how an old man could enter the womb a second time. He reappears at the end of the Gospel, bringing myrrh and aloes for the burial.

Which town, 'little among the thousands of Judah', did a prophet name as the home of a ruler to come?

Bethlehem is the answer Herod's chief priests and scribes give, quoting this very verse, when wise men from the east arrive asking where a king has been born.

Which birds complete Jesus's advice to the twelve, 'be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as ___'?

Doves stood for innocence, serpents for shrewdness. Jesus gave the advice while sending the twelve out to preach, warning them that councils and floggings lay ahead.

Which word completes 'Thy word is a ___ unto my feet', a line from the Bible's longest psalm?

Lamp has kept composers busy: Henry Purcell set the verse as an anthem, and Amy Grant turned it into Thy Word on her 1984 album Straight Ahead.

Which word completes Paul's taunt 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy ___'?

Victory changes hands two verses later, where Paul thanks God 'which giveth us the victory'. The taunt closes his long defence of the resurrection of the dead.

Which word completes the King James promise 'In my Father's house are many ___'?

Mansions is the King James word; most modern versions say rooms or dwelling places. Jesus made the promise at the Last Supper, adding 'I go to prepare a place for you'.

Which word completes Paul's King James line 'For now we see through a glass, ___; but then face to face'?

Darkly gave Ingmar Bergman the title of his Oscar-winning 1961 film Through a Glass Darkly, and Philip K. Dick reworked the phrase for his novel A Scanner Darkly.

Which word completes the verse Jesus quoted, 'The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the ___'?

Corner means the cornerstone here. Jesus quoted the line straight after a parable about murderous tenants, and the chief priests and Pharisees saw that he was speaking of them.

In the armour of God that Paul describes to the Ephesians, which piece is 'of salvation'?

The helmet comes fifth of six pieces, after the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace and the shield of faith. Only the last, a sword, is a weapon.

Which 13th-century archbishop of Canterbury devised the chapter divisions still printed in Bibles?

Stephen Langton is better remembered for politics: his leadership, backed by the barons' military strength, forced the king to put his seal to Magna Carta in 1215.

Which king told Paul 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian' after hearing his defence at Caesarea?

Agrippa drew a quick reply: Paul wished everyone listening were as he was, 'except these bonds'. The king judged that the prisoner could have gone free had he not appealed to Caesar.

Which Paris printer introduced the New Testament verse divisions still in use, in a Greek edition of 1551?

Robert Estienne, known in Latin as Stephanus, also published a vast Latin dictionary, the Thesaurus linguae latinae, and worked with the punchcutter Claude Garamond.

Which word completes the wisdom verse 'Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own ___'?

Understanding is set against trust here. The next verse promises that God 'shall direct thy paths' for anyone who acknowledges him 'in all thy ways'.

Which word completes Paul's warning 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also ___'?

Reap finishes a farming maxim that Paul opens with 'Be not deceived; God is not mocked'. Two verses on he urges readers not to be weary in well doing.