90 Bible Verses about Fasting And Spiritual Growth

Matthew 6:16-18 ESV / 11 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Nehemiah 1:4 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

Philippians 1:6 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Acts 13:2 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

Luke 2:37 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

Matthew 9:14-15 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Matthew 5:6 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Matthew 4:4 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Isaiah 58:6 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Isaiah 58:1-14 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? ...

Psalm 35:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But I, when they were sick— I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with head bowed on my chest.

Ezra 8:21-23 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.

Exodus 34:28 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

2 Peter 3:18 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

1 Peter 2:2 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—

2 Corinthians 11:27 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

Acts 9:9 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Joel 1:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

Daniel 10:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.

Esther 4:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”

Ezra 10:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles.

2 Peter 1:5-8 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Colossians 2:6-7 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Acts 14:23 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Acts 13:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Mark 9:29 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Matthew 4:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

Joel 2:12 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

Daniel 10:2-3 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.

Daniel 9:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

Isaiah 58:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers.

1 Kings 19:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

Deuteronomy 9:9 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.

1 John 4:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

2 Peter 3:17-18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

2 Peter 1:3-8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. ...

1 Peter 2:2-3 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

James 1:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

James 1:2-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Hebrews 10:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Hebrews 5:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Hebrews 5:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.

Hebrews 5:12-14 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Hebrews 5:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,

Titus 2:11-14 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Colossians 1:12-13 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,

Colossians 1:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Philippians 4:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Philippians 3:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Ephesians 4:14-15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Ephesians 4:1-32 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ...

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 13:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ...

1 Corinthians 11:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 9:27 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

1 Corinthians 7:1-5 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 8:1-39 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ...

Romans 6:1-7:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ...

Acts 13:2-3 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Acts 9:17-18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized;

Acts 2:42-47 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, ...

John 14:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Luke 12:32 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Luke 5:34-35 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”

Mark 2:18-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

Matthew 17:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 16:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Matthew 9:37-38 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Matthew 6:33 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 6:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Matthew 4:1-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Zechariah 5:1-11 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying scroll! And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.” Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. I will send it out, declares the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. And it shall remain in his house and consume it, both timber and stones.” Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said to me, “Lift your eyes and see what this is that is going out.” ...

Jeremiah 14:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

Jeremiah 14:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Thus says the Lord concerning this people: “They have loved to wander thus; they have not restrained their feet; therefore the Lord does not accept them; now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.”

Isaiah 66:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

Isaiah 58:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Psalm 69:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.

Psalm 23:1-6 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. ...

1 Kings 21:27-29 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house.”

2 Samuel 1:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

1 Samuel 7:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.” And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah.

Deuteronomy 9:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.

Exodus 34:28-29 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

Genesis 2:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ...