Category
VERSES ABOUT NATURE
Think about this: God created everything. The earth, the sky, the whole world—it all belongs to Him. He made it all, just like Exodus 20:11 says: "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." He created it all perfectly, and He deserves all the praise for the amazing things He's done.
You know, we should really stand in awe of God and give Him glory. The time is coming when He will judge the world, so let's worship the One who made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and the springs of water.
When you're out enjoying nature – at the beach, in the mountains, or just looking at a beautiful tree – remember who made it all so beautiful and perfect. Let's give God all the glory He deserves.
The righteous knows the life of his animal, but the compassion of the wicked is cruel.
And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image and according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every moving thing that moves upon the earth.”
who causes grass to grow for the cattle and herbs for the service of humankind, to bring forth food from the earth,
Consider the birds of the sky, that they do not sow or reap or gather produce into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they are?
If you see the donkey of your enemy lying down under its burden, you will refrain from abandoning him. You will surely arrange it with him.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments like the great deep. You save man and beast, O Yahweh.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God; you will not do any work—you or your son or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your animal, or your alien who is in your gates—
The wolf and the lamb shall feed like one, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall do no evil, and they shall not destroy on all my holy mountain,” says Yahweh.
Go to the ant, lazy! Consider its ways and be wise.It has no chief, officer, or ruler.In the summer, it prepares its food; in the harvest, it gathers its sustenance.
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God.
How many are your works, O Yahweh; all of them you have done in wisdom. The earth is full of your creatures.
I will make a covenant for them on that day, with the animals of the field, with the birds of the heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground; the bow, the sword, and the war I will abolish from the land, and I will let them lie down in safety.
And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know right from left, plus many animals?”
“If a bird’s nest is found before you on the road in any tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs, and the mother is lying down on the chicks or the eggs, you shall not take the mother along with the young;you shall certainly let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourselves; do this so that it may go well for you and you may live long in the land.
“ ‘Six days you will do your work, but on the seventh day you will stop so that your ox and your donkey will rest and the son of your slave woman and the alien will be refreshed.
And Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it.
And a wolf shall stay with a lamb, and a leopard shall lie down with a kid, and a calf and a lion and a fatling together as a small boy leads them.
and all its yield shall be for your domestic animal and for the wild animal, which are in your land to eat.
Who prepares for the crow its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and they wander around for lack of food?
But the seventh you will let it rest and leave it fallow, and the poor of your people will eat, and their remainder the animals of the field will eat. You will do likewise for your vineyard and for your olive trees.
“You shall not eat any carcass; you may give it to the alien who is in your towns, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people for Yahweh your God; you may not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
because every animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.I know every bird of the mountains, and every moving creature in the field is mine.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arm, and he will carry them in his bosom; he will lead those who nurse.
You make him over the works of your hands; all things you have placed under his feet:sheep and cattle, all of them, and also the wild animals of the field,the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, everything that passes along the paths of seas.
And he said to them, “Who among you, if your son or your ox falls into a well on the day of the Sabbath, will not immediately pull him out?”
The animals of the field will honor me, jackals and daughters of the ostrich, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give a drink to my chosen people,
And he came up and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine, and he put him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
For in the law of Moses it is written, “You must not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.” It is not about oxen God is concerned, is it?
It is not concerning a lack of your sacrifices that I rebuke you, and your burnt offerings are before me continually.I will not take from your house a bull or from your stalls a he-goat,
For the fate of humans and the fate of the beast is the same. The death of the one is like the death of the other, for both are mortal. Man has no advantage over the beast, for both are fleeting.
There the owl shall nest and lay and hatch and care for her chicks in her shadow; surely there the birds of prey shall be gathered, each one with her mate.
But he said to them, “What man will there be among you who will have one sheep and if this one fell into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?Then to what degree is a man worth more than a sheep? So then, it is permitted to do good on the Sabbath.”
“Do you know the time when the goats of the rocks give birth? Do you observe the doe deer’s giving birth?
who covers the heavens with clouds, who provides rain for the earth, who causes grass to grow on the mountains.
And a cow and a bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together. And a lion shall eat straw like the cattle.
“ ‘If a man opens a pit or if a man digs a pit and he does not cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it,the owner of the pit will pay restitution; he will pay silver to its owner, but the dead animal will be for him.
I will feed them in good pasture, and their pasture will be on the mountains of the heights of Israel; there they will lie down in good pasture, and on lush pasture they will feed on the mountains of Israel.
And out of the ground Yahweh God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and he brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called that living creature was its name.
Consider the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap; to them there is neither storeroom nor barn, and God feeds them. How much more are you worth than the birds?
And 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 the birds of heaven, and over every animal that moves upon the earth.”
And I will fling you to the desert, you and all the fish of your Nile streams. On the surface of the field you will fall; you will not be gathered, and you will not be assembled. To the animals of the field and to the birds of the heavens I will give you as food.
They will not injure and they will not destroy on all of my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea.
How precious is your loyal love, O God, and the children of humankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
who teaches us more than the animals of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’
But those who wait for Yahweh shall renew their strength. They shall go up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not be faint.
Even a bird finds a home, and a swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, near your altars, O Yahweh of hosts, my king and my God.
And God remembered Noah and all the wild animals, and all the domesticated animals that were with him in the ark. And God caused a wind to blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.
The angel of Yahweh said to him, “Why have you struck this donkey three times? Look, I have come out as an adversary because your conduct is perverse before me.The donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from my face, then I would have killed you and kept her alive.”
And of every living thing, from all flesh, you must bring two from every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.Then the sons of God saw the daughters of humankind, that they were beautiful. And they took for themselves wives from all that they chose.From the birds according to their kind, and from the animals according to their kind, from every creeping thing on the ground according to its kind—two from every kind shall come to you to keep them alive.
“You shall not see the donkey of your neighbor or his ox fallen on the road and you ignore them; certainly you must help them get up along with him.
You will do likewise for your ox and for your sheep and goats; seven days it will be with its mother; on the eighth, you will give it to me.
who covers the heavens with clouds, who provides rain for the earth, who causes grass to grow on the mountains.He gives to the animal its food, and to the young ravens that cry.
“Speak to the Israelites, saying, ‘These are the animals that you may eat from all the animals that are on the land:“ ‘Any winged insect that walks on all fours is detestable to you.Only this may you eat from any of the winged insects that walk on all fours—that which has jointed legs above its feet for leaping upon the land.From these you may eat the locust according to its kind and the bald locust according to its kind and the cricket according to its kind and the grasshopper according to its kind.But any other winged insect that has four legs is detestable to you.And by these you shall become unclean—anyone who touches their dead body shall become unclean until the evening,and anyone who carries their dead body must wash his garments, and he shall be unclean until the evening.“ ‘With regard to any animal that has a divided hoof but does not split the hoof, or does not have a cud for chewing—they are unclean for you; anyone who touches them shall become unclean.And anything that walks upon its paws among any of the animals that walks on all fours—they are unclean for you; anyone who touches their dead body shall become unclean until the evening,and the one who carries their dead body must wash his garments, and he shall be unclean until the evening—they are unclean for you.“ ‘And these are the unclean for you among the swarmers that swarm on the land: the weasel and the mouse and the thorn-tailed lizard according to its kind,Any among the animals that has a divided hoof and has a split cleft in the hoof, such you may eat.
“You shall not watch the ox of your neighbor or his sheep or goat straying and ignore them; certainly you shall return them to your neighbor.
There are four small things on the earth, and they are exceedingly wise:The ants are a people who are not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer;
It shall be that you shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the crows to sustain you there.”
From all the clean animals you must take for yourself seven pairs, a male and its mate. And from the animals that are not clean you must take two, a male and its mate,The waters swelled fifteen cubits above the mountains, covering them.And every living thing that moved on the earth perished—the birds, and the domesticated animals, and the wild animals, and everything that swarmed on the earth, and all humankind.Everything in whose nostrils was the breath of life, among all that was on dry land, died.And he blotted out every living thing upon the surface of the ground, from humankind, to animals, to creeping things, and to the birds of heaven; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained.And the waters prevailed over the earth one hundred and fifty days.as well as from the birds of heaven seven pairs, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of the earth.
you will hand over every first offspring of a womb to Yahweh, and every first offspring dropped by a domestic animal that will belong to you, the males will be for Yahweh.
but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto Yahweh your God; you shall not do any work, or your son, or your daughter, or your slave, or your slave woman, or your ox, or your donkey, or any of your domestic animals, or your resident alien who is in your towns, so that your slave and your slave woman may rest as you rest.
And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
what is a human being that you think of him? and a child of humankind that you care for him?And you made him a little lower than heavenly beings, and with glory and with majesty you crowned him.You make him over the works of your hands; all things you have placed under his feet:sheep and cattle, all of them, and also the wild animals of the field,the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, everything that passes along the paths of seas.
Every moving thing that lives shall be for you as food. As I gave the green plants to you, I have now given you everything.Only you shall not eat raw flesh with blood in it.
“Do you give power to the horse? Do you clothe its neck with a mane?Can you number the months they fulfill, and do you know the time of its giving birth?Do you make it leap like the locust? The majesty of its snorting is terrifying.They paw in the valley, and it exults with strength; it goes out to meet the battle.It laughs at danger and is not dismayed, and it does not turn back from before the sword.Upon it the quiver rattles along with the flash of the spear and the short sword.With roar and rage it races over the ground, and it cannot stand still at the sound of the horn.Whenever a horn sounds, it says, ‘Aha!’ And it smells the battle from a distance— the thunder of the commanders and the war cry.
“ ‘You must keep my statutes: as for your domestic animals, you shall not cause two differing kinds to breed; as for your field, you shall not sow two differing kinds of seed; and, a garment of two differing kinds of woven material should not be worn on you.
There are three things that are magnificent of stride, and four that are magnificent when moving:And I have not learned wisdom, nor will I know knowledge of the Holy One.a mighty lion among the beasts, but he will not turn back from any face;a strutting rooster or he-goat, and a king whose army is with him.
For no one knows whether the spirit of a human ascends to heaven and whether the spirit of the beast descends to the ground!
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind: cattle and moving things, and wild animals according to their kind.” And it was so.
Indeed, the life of all flesh, its blood, is in its life, so I said to the Israelites, ‘You may not eat the blood of any flesh, because the life of all flesh is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.’
The one who slaughters a bull strikes a man; the one who slaughters a lamb for sacrifice breaks the neck of a dog. The one who offers an offering, the blood of swine; the one who offers frankincense blesses an idol. Indeed, they themselves have chosen their ways, and their soul delights in their abhorrence.
“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, and the birds of the heaven, and they will tell you;
who causes grass to grow for the cattle and herbs for the service of humankind, to bring forth food from the earth,and wine that makes glad the heart of man, so that their faces shine from oil, and bread that strengthens the heart of man.
For look! I am about to create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered, and they shall not come to mind.
“The wings of the female ostrich flap— are they the pinions of the stork or the falcon?Indeed, it leaves its eggs to the earth, and it lets them be warmed on the ground,and it forgets that a foot might crush an egg, and a wild animal might trample it.It deals cruelly with its young ones, as if they were not its own, as if without fear that its labor were in vain,because God made it forget wisdom, and he did not give it a share in understanding.When it spreads its wings aloft, it laughs at the horse and its rider.
like cattle in the valley that goes down, the Spirit of Yahweh gave him rest, so you lead your people to make a magnificent name for yourself.