Well-known verses, in context

Line-by-line explanations of the passages people quote most — including what they meant first.

• Romans 8:28 Meaning: What 'All Things Work Together for Good' Really Promises

  It gets pressed into the hands of grieving people as if it meant the loss was secretly good. Read in its own sentence and the one after it…

• Psalm 46:10 Meaning: 'Be Still and Know' Is Not What You Think

  It gets printed over sunsets and sold as a cue to breathe and calm down. In the psalm itself, the line is spoken over earthquakes and collapsing…

• Psalm 23 Meaning: A Line-by-Line Explanation

  Psalm 23 is the most familiar poem in the Bible and one of the least closely read. Here it is line by line — the shepherd, the death-dark…

• John 3:16 Meaning: What the Most Famous Verse Actually Says

  The most quoted sentence on earth, and one of the most stripped of its setting. It was said quietly, after dark, to a single cautious man — and…

• Jeremiah 29:11 Meaning: The Verse Everyone Misquotes

  A line printed on graduation cards as a personal guarantee of a bright future. It was written to a defeated people who had just been marched…

• Philippians 4:6–7 Meaning: Written From a Prison Cell

  Four lines that get printed on mugs. They were written by a man under house arrest, awaiting a verdict that could have gone either way.