Bible Verses About Forgiveness
The short answer
Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:31-32, Matthew 18:21-22 and Matthew 6:14-15 are the core forgiveness passages. Scripture presents forgiveness as releasing a debt rather than as declaring the harm acceptable, and nothing in these passages requires the forgiver to restore access to someone who is still dangerous.
Forgiveness in Scripture is about releasing a claim, not about pretending nothing happened. That distinction matters, and it is often lost.
Where to begin
Three passages for when you want to forgive and cannot yet.
Colossians 3:13
bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do.
Biblical context
Part of a passage describing how a Christian community should be clothed: with mercy, kindness, humility and patience.
Selah’s reflection
The model given is Christ's forgiveness, which was costly and deliberate rather than casual.
Ephesians 4:31-32
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outcry, and slander, be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you.
Biblical context
Written to a church learning to live as one body across ethnic and social divisions.
Selah’s reflection
Bitterness is named as the thing being put down. The instruction is as much about what it does to you as about the other person.
Matthew 18:21-22
Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I don’t tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.
Biblical context
Peter's question follows Jesus's instructions about confronting wrongdoing in the community, and is followed by a parable about a forgiven debt.
Selah’s reflection
The parable that follows frames forgiveness as cancelling a debt, which is a legal image rather than an emotional one.
Further passages
Matthew 6:14-15
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Biblical context
A comment attached to the Lord's Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount.
Selah’s reflection
This is a hard saying and it is best read as a description of an open heart rather than as a transaction to be timed perfectly.
Genesis 50:20
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is today, to save many people alive.
Biblical context
Joseph speaks to the brothers who sold him into slavery, decades later, after they fear retaliation.
Selah’s reflection
He names what they did as evil in the same sentence in which he forgives it. Both halves are necessary.
Romans 12:19
Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”
Biblical context
Part of Paul's instructions on responding to persecution.
Selah’s reflection
Justice is not abandoned here, it is handed over. Letting go of revenge is not the same as saying it did not matter.
A short prayer
God, I want to be free of this more than I want to be right. I cannot forgive by deciding to. Begin the work in me, and keep me from bitterness while it takes as long as it takes.
A question to sit with
What would you be putting down if you forgave this, and what are you afraid you would lose with it?
Try Selah
Tell Selah what tonight actually feels like, and it will help you find relevant passages for this moment.
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