What does the Bible say about cursing your parents?
Bible Topic · WEB
The Bible teaches that cursing or treating one’s parents with contempt is a serious sin against God’s command to honor father and mother, calling for repentance, forgiveness, and a changed heart. Exodus 20:12 establishes filial honor as a basic duty, while Exodus 21:15, 17 and Leviticus 20:9 show how gravely such rebellion was judged under Israel’s civil law. Proverbs 20:20 and 30:11, 17 warn that contempt toward parents brings God’s judgment. Jesus reaffirmed this command in Matthew 15:4, exposing attempts to evade it. These passages do not authorize personal vengeance, but call believers to reverence, truthful speech, and humble repentance, even while recognizing that honoring parents never requires obeying sinful commands.
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Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible
- Leviticus 20:9
"'For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death: he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.
- Proverbs 20:20
Whoever curses his father or his mother, His lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness.
- Matthew 15:4
For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.'
- Exodus 21:15
"Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
- Exodus 21:17
"Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
- Exodus 20:12
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
- Deuteronomy 27:16
Cursed be he who sets light by his father or his mother. All the people shall say, Amen.
- Proverbs 30:11
There is a generation that curses their father, And doesn't bless their mother.
- Deuteronomy 21:18-21
[18] If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and, though they chasten him, will not listen to them; [19] then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place; [20] and they shall tell the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. [21] All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones: so shall you put away the evil from the midst of you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
- Proverbs 30:17
The eye that mocks at his father, And scorns obedience to his mother: The ravens of the valley shall pick it out, The young eagles shall eat it.
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