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47 Bible verses about caring for animals
Think about the Old Testament, how animal sacrifices were the norm. But even then, there are so many verses showing God pushing back against those sacrifices and calling for animal care. It really makes you think.
Proverbs 12:1010, for instance, says, "The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel." That's powerful. God's word includes advocating for animals. It's right there in the Bible.
If you really dig into the prophets, you'll find tons of verses urging care for animals. Hosea 8:1313 puts it plainly: "They offer sacrifices of animals and eat the meat, but the Lord is not pleased with them. Now he will remember their wickedness and punish their sins." It's a good reminder that true worship goes beyond rituals and involves how we treat all of God's creation.
And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.
Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they?
and to every animal of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.
Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.”
Then God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kind: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to their kind”; and it was so.
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
¶And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fattened steer will be together; And a little boy will lead them.
Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.”So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
A righteous person has regard for the life of his animal, But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.
The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every animal of the earth and on every bird of the sky; on everything that crawls on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea. They are handed over to you.Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard.He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent.Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him.So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.”He also said, “Blessed be the Lord, The God of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant. “May God enlarge Japheth, And may he live in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant.” Noah lived 350 years after the flood.So all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I have given everything to you, as I gave the green plant.
Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.
“If you encounter your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away, you must return it to him.If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall not leave it helpless for its owner; you must arrange the load with him.
The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil or harm on all My holy mountain,” says the Lord.
the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who stays with you.
¶Know well the condition of your flocks, And pay attention to your herds;For riches are not forever, Nor does a crown endure to all generations.When the grass disappears, the new growth is seen, And the herbs of the mountains are gathered in,The lambs will be for your clothing, And the goats will bring the price of a field,And there will be enough goats’ milk for your food, For the food of your household, And sustenance for your attendants.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgments are like the great deep. Lord, You protect mankind and animals.
And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.
“For six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave, as well as the stranger residing with you, may refresh themselves.
“You shall not see your countryman’s ox or his sheep straying away, and avoid them; you shall certainly bring them back to your countryman.“You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.“You shall not wear a material of wool and linen combined together.“You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of your garment with which you cover yourself.“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her,and he charges her with shameful behavior and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her to have evidence of virginity,’then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he turned against her;and behold, he has charged her with shameful behavior, saying, “I did not find your daughter to have evidence of virginity.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread out the garment before the elders of the city.Then the elders of that city shall take the man and rebuke him,and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he is not allowed to divorce her all his days. And if your countryman is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your house, and it shall remain with you until your countryman looks for it; then you shall restore it to him.“But if this charge is true, and they did not find the girl to have evidence of virginity,then they shall bring the girl out to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death, because she has committed a disgraceful sin in Israel by playing the prostitute in her father’s house; so you shall eliminate the evil from among you. “If a man is found sleeping with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who slept with the woman, and the woman; so you shall eliminate the evil from Israel.“If there is a girl who is a virgin betrothed to a man, and another man finds her in the city and sleeps with her,then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death: the girl, because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall eliminate the evil from among you. “But if the man finds the girl who is betrothed in the field, and the man seizes her and rapes her, then only the man who raped her shall die.And you are not to do anything to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case.When he found her in the field, the betrothed girl cried out, but there was no one to save her. “If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and has sexual relations with her, and they are discovered,then the man who had sexual relations with her shall give the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife, because he has violated her; he is not allowed to divorce her all his days.You shall also do this with his donkey, and you shall do the same with his garment, and you shall do likewise with any lost property of your countryman, which has been lost by him and you have found. You are not allowed to avoid them.“A man shall not take his father’s wife in marriage, so that he does not uncover his father’s garment.You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fallen down on the road, and avoid them; you shall certainly help him raise them up.
For the fate of the sons of mankind and the fate of animals is the same. As one dies, so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath, and there is no advantage for mankind over animals, for all is futility.A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.
“If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs in it, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young;you shall certainly let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, in order that it may go well for you and that you may prolong your days.
If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall not leave it helpless for its owner; you must arrange the load with him.
¶And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fattened steer will be together; And a little boy will lead them.Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox.The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took some of every kind of clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
“For every animal of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills.“I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine.
Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in the fold of His robe; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.
Are two sparrows not sold for an assarion? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.
And He said to them, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?”
Are five sparrows not sold for two assaria? And yet not one of them has gone unnoticed in the sight of God.But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not fear; you are more valuable than a great number of sparrows.
For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God.For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hopethat the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Should I not also have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 people, who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left, as well as many animals?”
¶Lord, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; The earth is full of Your possessions. There is the sea, great and broad, In which are swarms without number, Animals both small and great.
Then the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way was reckless and contrary to me.But the donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If she had not turned away from me, I certainly would have killed you just now, and let her live.”
So then, while we have opportunity, let’s do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
Are five sparrows not sold for two assaria? And yet not one of them has gone unnoticed in the sight of God.
that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
“Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer?“Can you tie down the wild bull in a furrow with ropes, Or will he plow the valleys after you? “Will you trust him because his strength is great, And leave your labor to him?“Will you have faith in him that he will return your grain And gather it from your threshing floor?¶“The wings of the ostrich flap joyously, With the pinion and feathers of love, For she abandons her eggs to the earth And warms them in the dust,And she forgets that a foot may crush them, Or that a wild animal may trample them. “She treats her young cruelly, as if they were not hers; Though her labor is for nothing, she is unconcerned, Because God has made her forget wisdom, And has not given her a share of understanding.“When she rushes away on high, She laughs at the horse and his rider.¶“Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane?“Can you count the months they fulfill, Or do you know the time they give birth?“Do you make him leap like locusts? His majestic snorting is frightening.“He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength; He goes out to meet the battle.“He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; And he does not turn back from the sword.“The quiver rattles against him, The flashing spear and javelin.“He races over the ground with a roar and fury, And he does not stand still when he hears the sound of the trumpet.“As often as the trumpet sounds he says, ‘Aha!’ And he senses the battle from afar, And the thunder of the captains and the war cry.¶“Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, Stretching his wings toward the south?“Is it at your command that the eagle flies high, And makes his nest on high?“He dwells and spends his nights on the cliff, On the rocky cliff, an inaccessible place.“From there he tracks food; His eyes look at it from afar.“They kneel down, they deliver their young, They get rid of their labor pains.“His young ones also lick up blood greedily; And where the slain are, there he is.”“Their offspring become strong, they grow up in the open field; They leave and do not return to them.
You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet,All sheep and oxen, And also the animals of the field,The birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.