Verses for When You Hate Someone

You keep replaying what they did. Here are nine verses for exactly that, and a way to get one matched to how you're actually feeling in the next thirty seconds.

By SimpleBible Editorial 2 min read
A dark phone and a cold cup of coffee on a table under hard late-night lamplight, with a closed Bible out of focus behind them

The short answer

When you hate someone, Scripture doesn't open by telling you to stop. It gives you somewhere to put it. "Pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us" (Psalm 62:8) and "Avenge not yourselves... Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19) are the two verses most people reach for first.

Nine verses for when you can't put it down

"Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us." (Psalm 62:8)

"Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies." (Psalm 139:21-22)

Someone prayed this out loud and it was kept in the songbook.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me." (Psalm 139:23-24)

That is the next verse. No gap, no apology, and it doesn't take back the one before it.

"For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it. But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company." (Psalm 55:12-14)

The worst version of this is when it's someone you used to sit next to.

"Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath." (Ephesians 4:26)

The anger is allowed here. What gets a time limit is how long it stays.

"Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour." (Leviticus 19:17)

"Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people." (Leviticus 19:18)

"If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink." (Proverbs 25:21)

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you." (Matthew 5:44)

Get one matched to right now

There isn't a dedicated "hate" feeling in Today's Verse. The closest match is Angry. Either way, the app matches a verse to how you're doing three times a day, out of a rotating set for that feeling, so it's never the same one on repeat.

Get today's verse matched to how you're feeling, right in the app.

A short prayer for when you can't put it down

God, I keep going back to what they did, and I can't set it down on my own. I'd rather say it to you than carry it around all day pretending I'm fine. You saw the whole thing, my part included. Take the settling of it. That was never mine to do. Amen.

Common questions

Is it a sin to hate someone?

The letters treat it seriously. 1 John 2:9 puts hating a fellow believer and walking in darkness together, and Leviticus 19:17 names it as a condition of the heart rather than an action. The same Bible also kept Psalm 139 and Psalm 137, where people say hateful things out loud in prayer and nobody edits them out. Christian traditions weigh those two facts differently.

What does the Bible say about holding a grudge?

Leviticus 19:18 names it directly: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge." Hebrews 12:15 uses the picture of a root of bitterness that grows and spreads to other people, which is closer to how a grudge actually behaves than a single decision would be.

Why can't I stop replaying what they did?

Because the replay is doing something physical. In a 2001 study published in Psychological Science, 71 people were asked to think about someone who had genuinely hurt them. While they rehearsed the hurt and held onto the grudge, their heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance and brow muscle tension all rose above baseline. The body responds to the rerun roughly the way it responded to the original.

How is this different from the app's daily verse?

This page is a fixed list. The app matches a verse to how you're feeling from a rotating set of ten per feeling, three times a day, so it's rarely the same one twice, and each comes with a short prayer written for it.

Sources

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