49 Bible Verses about Repentance, Nature Of

And he gave witness to Israel and Judah, by every prophet and seer, saying, Come back from your evil ways, and do my orders and keep my rules, and be guided by the law which I gave to your fathers and sent to you by my servants the prophets.

For they themselves give the news of how we came among you; and how you were turned from images to God, to the worship of a true and living God,

Be turned from evil, and do good; make a search for peace, desiring it with all your heart.

Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him.

Good people, why are you doing these things? We are men with the same feelings as you, and we give you the good news so that you may be turned away from these foolish things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all things in them:

For this cause be ruled by God; but make war on the Evil One and he will be put to flight before you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Make your hands clean, you evil-doers; put away deceit from your hearts, you false in mind. Be troubled, with sorrow and weeping; let your laughing be turned to sorrow and your joy to grief.read more.
Make yourselves low in the eyes of the Lord and you will be lifted up by him.

The offerings of God are a broken spirit; a broken and sorrowing heart, O God, you will not put from you.

For though my letter gave you pain, I have no regret for it now, though I had before; for I see that the letter gave you pain, but only for a time. Now I am glad, not that you had sorrow, but that your sorrow was the cause of a change of heart; for yours was a holy sorrow so that you might undergo no loss by us in anything. For the sorrow which God gives is the cause of salvation through a change of heart, in which there is no reason for grief: but the sorrow of the world is a cause of death.

For this cause I give witness that what I said is false, and in sorrow I take my seat in the dust.

The Lord is near the broken-hearted; he is the saviour of those whose spirits are crushed down.

For this is the word of him who is high and lifted up, whose resting-place is eternal, whose name is Holy: my resting-place is in the high and holy place, and with him who is crushed and poor in spirit, to give life to the spirit of the poor, and to make strong the heart of the crushed.

For all these things my hand has made, and they are mine, says the Lord; but to this man only will I give attention, to him who is poor and broken in spirit, fearing my word.

But even now, says the Lord, come back to me with all your heart, keeping from food, with weeping and with sorrow: Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from his purpose of punishment.

The tax-farmer, on the other hand, keeping far away, and not lifting up even his eyes to heaven, made signs of grief and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

But when he came to his senses, he said, What numbers of my father's servants have bread enough, and more, while I am near to death here through need of food! I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have done wrong, against heaven and in your eyes: I am no longer good enough to be named your son: make me like one of your servants.

And whoever is responsible for any such sin, let him make a statement openly of his wrongdoing;

Have pity on me, O God, in your mercy; out of a full heart, take away my sin. Let all my wrongdoing be washed away, and make me clean from evil. For I am conscious of my error; my sin is ever before me.

He who keeps his sins secret will not do well; but one who is open about them, and gives them up, will get mercy.

O Israel, come back to the Lord your God; for your evil-doing has been the cause of your fall. Take with you words, and come back to the Lord; say to him, Let there be forgiveness for all wrongdoing, so that we may take what is good, and give in payment the fruit of our lips.

And Ezra the priest got to his feet and said to them, You have done wrong and taken strange women for your wives, so increasing the sin of Israel. So now, give praise to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure; and make yourselves separate from the peoples of the land and from the strange women.

For this cause say to the children of Israel, These are the words of the Lord: Come back and give up your false gods and let your faces be turned from your disgusting things.

For this reason my decision is, that we do not put trouble in the way of those who from among the Gentiles are turned to God; But that we give them orders to keep themselves from things offered to false gods, and from the evil desires of the body, and from the flesh of animals put to death in ways against the law, and from blood.

Say to the children of Israel, If a man or a woman does any of the sins of men, going against the word of the Lord, and is in the wrong; Let them say openly what they have done; and make payment for the wrong done, with the addition of a fifth part, and give it to him to whom the wrong was done.

And Zacchaeus, waiting before him, said to the Lord, See, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone wrongly, I give him back four times as much.

For the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, said, In quiet and rest is your salvation: peace and hope are your strength: but you would not have it so.

But I have made prayer for you, that your faith may not go from you: and when you are turned again, make your brothers strong.

And the power of the Lord was with them, and a great number had faith and were turned to the Lord.

Preaching to Jews and to Greeks the need for a turning of the heart to God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

To make their eyes open, turning them from the dark to the light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may have forgiveness of sins and a heritage among those who are made holy by faith in me.

But if the evil-doer, turning away from all the sins which he has done, keeps my rules and does what is ordered and right, life will certainly be his; death will not be his fate. Not one of the sins which he has done will be kept in memory against him: in the righteousness which he has done he will have life. Have I any pleasure in the death of the evil-doer? says the Lord: am I not pleased if he is turned from his way so that he may have life?

From the days of your fathers you have been turned away from my rules and have not kept them. Come back to me, and I will come back to you, says the Lord of armies. But you say, How are we to come back? Will a man keep back from God what is right? But you have kept back what is mine. But you say, What have we kept back from you? Tenths and offerings. You are cursed with a curse; for you have kept back from me what is mine, even all this nation.read more.
Let your tenths come into the store-house so that there may be food in my house, and put me to the test by doing so, says the Lord of armies, and see if I do not make the windows of heaven open and send down such a blessing on you that there is no room for it.

But I went about, first to those in Damascus and Jerusalem, and through all the country of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, preaching a change of heart, so that they, being turned to God, might give, in their works, the fruits of a changed heart.

Be washed, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; let there be an end of sinning; Take pleasure in well-doing; let your ways be upright, keep down the cruel, give a right decision for the child who has no father, see to the cause of the widow.

For this cause, O King, let my suggestion be pleasing to you, and let your sins be covered by righteousness and your evil-doing by mercy to the poor, so that the time of your well-being may be longer.

Let your change of heart be seen in your works:

Make clear by your acts that your hearts have been changed; and do not say to yourselves, We have Abraham for our father: for I say to you that God is able from these stones to make children of Abraham.

And the people put questions to him, saying, What have we to do? And he made answer and said to them, He who has two coats, let him give to him who has not even one; and he who has food, let him do the same. Then tax-farmers came to him for baptism and said to him, Master, what have we to do?read more.
And he said to them, Do not make an attempt to get more money than the right amount. And men of the army put questions to him, saying, And what have we to do? And he said to them, Do no violent acts to any man, and do not take anything without right, and let your payment be enough for you.

But for all this, her false sister Judah has not come back to me with all her heart, but with deceit, says the Lord.

And I will give them a heart to have knowledge of me, that I am the Lord: and they will be my people, and I will be their God: for they will come back to me with all their heart.

If they do wrong against you, (for no man is without sin,) and you are angry with them and give them up into the power of those who are fighting against them, so that they take them away as prisoners into a strange land, far off or near; And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, and are turned again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil; And with all their heart and soul are turned again to you, in the land of those who took them prisoners, and make their prayer to you, turning their eyes to this land which you gave to their fathers, and to the town which you took for yourself, and the house which I made for your name:read more.
Then give ear to their prayer and to their cry in heaven your living-place, and see right done to them; Answering with forgiveness the people who have done wrong against you, and overlooking the evil which they have done against you; let those who made them prisoners be moved with pity for them, and have pity on them;

If they do wrong against you, (for no man is without sin,) and you are angry with them, and give them up into the power of those who are fighting against them, so that they take them away prisoners to a land far off or near; And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, turning again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil; If with all their heart and soul they are turned again to you, in the land where they are prisoners, the land where they have been taken, and make their prayers, turning their eyes to their land which you gave to their fathers, and to the town which you took for yourself, and the house which I have made for your name:read more.
Then give ear from heaven your living-place to their prayer and their cry, and see right done to them, answering with forgiveness your people who have done wrong against you.

When he sent death on them, then they made search for him; turning to him and looking for him with care; In the memory that God was their Rock, and the Most High God their saviour. But their lips were false to him, and their tongues were untrue to him;read more.
And their hearts were not right with him, and they did not keep their agreement with him.

Come, let us go back to the Lord; for he has given us wounds and he will make us well; he has given blows and he will give help. After two days he will give us life, and on the third day he will make us get up, and we will be living before him. And let us have knowledge, let us go after the knowledge of the Lord; his going out is certain as the dawn, his decisions go out like the light; he will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.read more.
O Ephraim, what am I to do to you? O Judah, what am I to do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes early away.

It may be that they will give ear, and that every man will be turned from his evil way, so that my purpose of sending evil on them because of the evil of their doings may be changed.

So the Lord let himself be turned from his purpose of sending punishment on his people.

And kept in mind his agreement with them, and in his great mercy gave them forgiveness.

How may I give you up, O Ephraim? how may I be your saviour, O Israel? how may I make you like Admah? how may I do to you as I did to Zeboim? My heart is turned in me, it is soft with pity.

Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from his purpose of punishment.

This is what the Lord God let me see: and I saw that, when the growth of the late grass was starting, he made locusts; it was the late growth after the king's cutting was done. And it came about that after they had taken all the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, have mercy: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small. The Lord, changing his purpose about this, said, It will not be.read more.
This is what the Lord let me see: and I saw that the Lord God sent for a great fire to be the instrument of his punishment; and, after burning up the great deep, it was about to put an end to the Lord's heritage. Then said I, O Lord God, let there be an end: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small. The Lord, changing his purpose about this, said, And this will not be.