Bible Verses for Verbal Abuse

Looking at What Scripture Says About Verbal

Words Pierce Like Swords

Proverbs 12:18 names the reality without softening it — words can pierce like a sword. Consider this. This isn't metaphor for mild unkindness; it's a description of a specific kind of damage. James 3:9 adds the theological weight: to curse a person made in God's image is to curse the image of God. Psalm 55 is the most honest passage about abuse from a trusted intimate — the psalmist says that a stranger's attack could have been managed, but it's the trusted person's words that collapse the ground. God doesn't require you to call cruelty by a softer name.

Verses Worth Coming Back To

PRO 12:18 — "There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health."

EPH 4:29 — "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers."

PSA 10:7 — "His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity."

JAS 3:9 — "Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God."

PSA 55:12 — "For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him."