17 Bible verses about hope
Passages for the long wait, the hard diagnosis, the graveside and the ordinary gray Tuesday, each with a few lines on what it asks of you.
The MySavior teamUpdated · 10 min read
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
From Hebrews 6:19 · BSB
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 · BSB
The Bible verses about hope that people reach for most are Romans 15:13, Jeremiah 29:11, Lamentations 3:21–23 and Hebrews 6:19, and they share one surprising idea: hope in Scripture is not a mood you wait for, but a confidence that rests on who God is. That is why the people who wrote these lines could hope in exile, in prison, beside a grave and in a burned city.
The word has worn thin. We say “I hope so” about the weather and the train. The Bible’s hope is sturdier. It is usually spoken by someone who has every reason to give up and has decided, for reasons outside themselves, not to.
Below are seventeen passages, all quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, with a few lines on what each meant when it was written and what it asks of you now. Read them slowly. One of them will probably catch. Keep that one close.
If hope feels completely out of reach, or you have started to think the people you love would be better off without you, please tell someone today: a friend, a pastor, a doctor. Asking for help is not a failure of faith.
When you need hope given, not made
Romans 15:13
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 · BSB
Near the end of his longest letter, Paul gives God a name found nowhere else in the Bible: “the God of hope.” Hope here is not something you work up on your own. It is filled in, and it overflows, “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Try praying it for someone else by name before you pray it for yourself.
When everything has fallen down
Lamentations 3:21–23
Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!
Lamentations 3:21–23 · BSB
Lamentations is five poems written over the ruins of Jerusalem after the Babylonians destroyed it, and most of it is grief with nothing softened. Then, in the middle poem, the writer does something deliberate: “Yet I call this to mind.” Hope begins as an act of memory before it becomes a feeling. You cannot always choose how you feel this morning, but you can choose what you call to mind.
When you are low and cannot say why
Psalm 42:11
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42:11 · BSB
The psalmist talks to himself, which is sometimes the most faithful thing a person can do. The same question comes back three times across Psalms 42 and 43, so he did not settle it in one try either. Look at the small word in the middle: “I will yet praise Him.” Not now, perhaps. But yet.
When the wait is longer than you hoped
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11 · BSB
Its setting makes this famous verse stronger, not weaker. Jeremiah wrote it in a letter to people already carried off to Babylon, one verse after telling them the exile would last seventy years. Many of them would not live to see the way home. The promise was real, and the future it named was bigger than a single lifetime.
When everything is moving
From Hebrews 6:19
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
From Hebrews 6:19 · BSB
An anchor does not stop the waves. It keeps the boat from drifting while they pass. Hebrews says our hope is fastened where we cannot see, in God’s own presence, and that is why it holds. In the second and third centuries, Christians carved and painted anchors on tombs in the Roman catacombs as a sign of exactly this hope.
When it hurts and you cannot see the point
Romans 5:3–5
Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
Romans 5:3–5 · BSB
Paul lays out a chain: suffering, perseverance, character, hope. He is not saying that pain is good, or that it is quick. He is saying that pain handed to God is not wasted, and that the hope it leaves behind “does not disappoint,” because it rests on a love already poured into you, not on how things turn out.
For the long night
Psalm 130:5–6
I wait for the LORD; my soul does wait, and in His word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning—more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Psalm 130:5–6 · BSB
Picture a watchman on the city wall at four in the morning: cold, tired, and completely sure the sun is coming. He cannot hurry it. He can only keep his eyes on the east. The psalm says the line about the watchmen twice, the way tired people repeat themselves, and the repetition is a prayer too.
When something has been cut down
Job 14:7
For there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its tender shoots will not fail.
Job 14:7 · BSB
Job says this in the depths of his grief, almost with envy: a stump can sprout again, but a man lies down and does not rise. A few verses later he asks it outright, “When a man dies, will he live again?” Scripture lets that question stand for a long time. The empty tomb is its answer, and the reason a Christian can read this verse beside a stump, or a grave, and still hope.
When you cannot see it yet
Romans 8:24–25
For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see? But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:24–25 · BSB
Paul states the obvious so plainly it is almost funny: nobody hopes for what they already have. Hope lives in the gap between the promise and the thing promised, and the gap is not a sign that something has gone wrong. What fills it is patience, not the gritted-teeth kind, but the patience of someone who knows what is coming.
Three things to do today
Romans 12:12
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, persistent in prayer.
Romans 12:12 (BSB)
Joyful, patient, persistent. Paul gives this short rule of life to ordinary believers in Rome, between lessons on loving one another and feeding a hungry enemy. Hope comes first because it makes the other two possible. It is short enough to read on your Lock Screen every time you pick up the phone.
Sunday, November 8
9:41
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, persistent in prayer.
Romans 12:12 · BSBTurn this verse into your Lock Screen wallpaperWrite it over a photograph in MySavior’s wallpaper maker and save it to Photos at the size of your iPhone’s screen.
★ Rated 4.9 on the US App StoreLoved by Christians in 60+ countries8,000+ people every month
When the other hopes have run out
Psalm 39:7
And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.
Psalm 39:7 · BSB
Psalm 39 is a sober psalm. David has been thinking about how short life is, a handbreadth, a breath, people bustling about and heaping up riches for someone else. Then he turns: “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?” When every smaller hope has proved too small, this one is still standing.
When people let you down
Micah 7:7
But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.
Micah 7:7 · BSB
Micah has just described a society where no one can be trusted, not a friend, not a companion, not even your own household. Then come four small words: “But as for me.” Hope does not wait for the world to improve before it looks up. It decides where to look while things are still bad.
When the wrong people seem to be winning
Proverbs 23:18
For surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
Proverbs 23:18 · BSB
The verse just before this one says, “Do not let your heart envy sinners.” It is easy to watch people cut corners and seem to do well. The proverb answers with a quiet word about time: there is a future, and the hope you have put in God is not wasted.
When you need a reason, not a feeling
From 1 Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
From 1 Peter 1:3 · BSB
Peter writes to believers scattered across five regions of what is now Turkey, and before a single instruction he blesses God. The hope he names is “living,” and it has a date and a place: the resurrection of Jesus. Christian hope is not optimism about how things usually go. It rests on one morning when everything went differently.
For the later years
Psalm 71:14
But I will always hope and will praise You more and more.
Psalm 71:14 · BSB
This is the prayer of someone growing old. Earlier he asks, “Do not discard me in my old age”; later, “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me.” In between he makes a promise that grows with the years instead of shrinking: always hope, more and more praise. Pray it for a grandparent, or for yourself on a birthday that feels heavy.
When you are grieving
1 Thessalonians 4:13
Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 · BSB
The young church in Thessalonica was troubled about friends who had died. Paul does not tell them not to grieve. He tells them not to grieve “like the rest, who are without hope.” Tears and hope can stand at the same graveside, and at Christian funerals they usually do.
Where all of it is going
From Revelation 21:5
Behold, I make all things new
From Revelation 21:5 · BSB
Near the very end of the Bible, the One seated on the throne speaks, and the verb is in the present tense: “I make,” not “I will make.” The renewal has already begun, and Easter morning was its first light. Every other verse on this page leans toward this one.
A small practice for this week
Each morning this week, before you open your messages, read Lamentations 3:22–23 out loud and name one mercy from the day before. Keep it specific: a phone call that came at the right time, a good night’s sleep, a kind word at work. By Friday you will have a short list, and hope usually starts there, not with a feeling, but with a record of what God has already done.
For a reminder through the day, put MySavior’s Bible Verse widget on your Home Screen with the Bright Hope topic chosen.
Keep hope where your eyes already go
Add the Bright Hope topic to MySavior’s Bible Verse widget, and short texts of hope turn up on your Home Screen, changing by themselves on the schedule you pick.
★ Rated 4.9 on the US App StoreLoved by Christians in 60+ countries8,000+ people every month
Questions
What does the Bible say about hope?
That hope rests on God’s character rather than on circumstances. Romans 15:13 calls him “the God of hope,” Hebrews 6:19 calls hope “an anchor for the soul,” and 1 Peter 1:3 ties it to the resurrection of Jesus. Biblical hope is a confident waiting for what God has promised, even when it cannot yet be seen (Romans 8:24–25).
What is a short Bible verse about hope?
Psalm 39:7 is only fourteen words long: “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.” Romans 12:12 is another: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, persistent in prayer.”
Is Jeremiah 29:11 really written to me?
It was first written to Jewish exiles in Babylon, right after God told them the exile would last seventy years (Jeremiah 29:10). Christians read it as a window into God’s character: he plans good for his people, even through waits longer than a lifetime.
Which Bible translation is quoted here?
Every verse in this article is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB).
How can I keep verses about hope on my iPhone Home Screen?
Add MySavior’s Bible Verse widget and choose the Bright Hope topic in the Widget Studio. It moves on to another text by itself, on the schedule you pick. New to widgets? Here is how to add one to the Home Screen.
