What does the Bible say about jealousy and envy?

Top passages, ranked by readers

Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible

• James 3:14-16 8 votes

  But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and don’t lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed.

• Proverbs 14:30 7 votes

  The life of the body is a heart at peace, but envy rots the bones.

• 1 Corinthians 13:4 4 votes

  Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,

• Proverbs 27:4 4 votes

  Wrath is cruel, and anger is overwhelming; but who is able to stand before jealousy?

• Galatians 5:19-21 4 votes

  Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.

• Philippians 2:3 4 votes

  doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself;

• James 3:16 4 votes

  For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed.

• 1 Corinthians 3:3 3 votes

  for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?

• Romans 13:13 2 votes

  Let’s walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy.

• 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 2 votes

  If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.

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