Bible Verses About Healing
Whether you are waiting on results, sitting beside a hospital bed, or living with something that will not go away — these are the passages women reach for. This page is encouragement, not medical advice; keep your doctors close.
Psalm 147:3 says God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds,” and James 5:14-15 tells the sick to call for prayer — Scripture treats healing as something to ask for plainly, and God as free in how He answers.
Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for You are my praise.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.
saying, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds— He who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases,
Beloved, I pray that in every way you may prosper and enjoy good health, as your soul also prospers.
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.
Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am frail; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are in agony.
O LORD my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me.
Ask plainly
Scripture never treats asking for healing as presumptuous. “O LORD my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me” (Psalm 30:2). James 5:14 tells the sick to call the elders and be prayed over. Jesus asked a blind man outright what he wanted Him to do (Mark 10:51) — He invited the specific request.
You are allowed to ask for the thing you actually want. In plain words. More than once.
What the Bible does not promise
It also matters to say what these verses do not say. Paul asked three times for a thorn to be removed and was told no — and given “My grace is sufficient for you” instead (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). Timothy was told to take wine for his frequent stomach ailments, not to pray harder. Trophimus was left behind sick.
So when someone implies that your body has not healed because your faith is too small, they are not speaking Scripture’s language. The New Testament is full of faithful people who stayed ill.
Healing that is not physical
Psalm 147:3 puts broken hearts and bound wounds in one line, and Scripture keeps the two together throughout. Isaiah 53:5 — “by His stripes we are healed” — is speaking first about a deeper rupture than the body’s.
If the thing that needs mending in you this year is not physical, you are not on the wrong page.
Living with something chronic
For an illness that is not going away, the psalms of endurance serve better than the psalms of rescue. Psalm 73:26 is honest about the arithmetic: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” It concedes the failing. It just refuses to end the sentence there.
Practical care is part of this, not separate from it. Rest is not a lack of faith. Taking the medication is not a lack of faith. Asking for help is not a lack of faith.
When you are the one waiting in the corridor
Being the well person beside a sick one is its own exhaustion, and it is rarely acknowledged. Exodus 17 has the picture for it: Moses held up his hands until he could not, and Aaron and Hur put a stone under him and held his arms up on either side. Someone has to hold up the holder. Let them.
Praying for someone else’s healing
Praying for a person you love is its own kind of hard, because you can feel the helplessness in your hands.
Pray specifically — the appointment, the scan, the night, the fear underneath it. And keep going after the first month, when everyone else has gone back to their lives and she is still in it.
James 5:16 puts praying for one another in the plainest possible terms, and Galatians 6:2 makes carrying each other’s burdens an instruction rather than a nicety. The practical half counts too: the meal that freezes, the lift to the hospital, the message that needs no reply.
A prayer for healing
Lord, You know exactly what is wrong — the part with a name and the part I cannot describe. I am asking plainly: heal this. Heal it fully, and let me see it. And if Your answer is the slower one, then be the strength of my heart while my body is not strong. Give wisdom to everyone treating me. Keep me from despair while I wait. Amen.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible. Tap any reference to compare all four translations.