Push From God

Bible readings for the New Year

Almost every New Year verse list runs the same five passages, and they are good ones — we keep them on our own verses for new beginnings page. This page is for the other job: choosing something to read out loud at a watchnight service, a covenant service, or a table on 31 December. Fifteen passages in both translations, with how long each one takes aloud — including the three verses that are actually about a year, which the lists skip.

15 passages · World English Bible & King James · public domain

Choosing for the room you are actually in

New Year readings get used in three quite different places, and the right length is different in each:

  • A watchnight service runs long and is mostly waiting. Short readings between hymns work better than one big one — Psalm 65:11 is five seconds, Psalm 90:12 is six.
  • A covenant service on the first Sunday of January is the more formal setting, and wants something with weight in it. Philippians 3:13-14 or Psalm 103:1-5.
  • A table, a card, or a message to one person needs ten seconds and no preamble. Numbers 6:24-26 is the oldest blessing here and still the best of them for that.

Two practical notes. Read it aloud once before you commit — Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 looks short on a page and runs a full minute, and its repetitions are harder to say than they look. And if you are reading at midnight to people who have been up since six, pick the shortest thing on this page that says what you mean.

Everything here is public domain — the World English Bible and the King James — so you can print any of it in an order of service, a newsletter or a card without a licence, a fee, or a permissions email.

  1. It is because of The LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.Lamentations 3:22-23 · World English Bible

    Mercies new every morning. Eleven seconds, and the most-used New Year reading there is. Worth noticing before you read it: the word is morning, not year. It was written by someone sitting in the ruins of a destroyed city, and it offers a renewal that arrives daily rather than annually. Related verses →

    King James

    It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

  2. “Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.Isaiah 43:18-19 · World English Bible

    “Behold, I will do a new thing.” Sixteen seconds. The clause people skip is the next one — it springs out now; don't you know it? — which describes the new thing as already underway and not yet visible. Related verses →

    King James

    Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

  3. So teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.Psalms 90:12 · World English Bible

    “Teach us to number our days.” Six seconds, and the shortest reading here that is genuinely about time passing. It asks for wisdom about a finite life rather than for a better year, which is a different prayer from the one most New Year lists offer.

    King James

    So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

  4. a land which the LORD your God cares for. The LORD your God’s eyes are always on it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.Deuteronomy 11:12 · World English Bible

    Twelve seconds, and almost never on a list. It is one of the few verses in Scripture that actually contains the phrase “the beginning of the year” — and what it says is that the attention does not lapse between one end of it and the other.

    King James

    A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.

  5. You crown the year with your bounty. Your carts overflow with abundance.Psalms 65:11 · World English Bible

    “You crown the year with your bounty.” Five seconds — the shortest reading on this page, and a harvest verse rather than a January one. Open the King James underneath it: the two translations part company in the second half, and the older one is the more literal. See below.

    King James

    Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.

  6. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you,” says the LORD, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future.Jeremiah 29:11 · World English Bible

    “I know the thoughts that I think towards you.” Eleven seconds, and the verse most likely to be on the card. It was written to people who had just been told they were staying in exile for seventy years, which is worth knowing before it is read as a forecast for January. Related verses →

    King James

    For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

  7. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.2 Corinthians 5:17 · World English Bible

    “Behold, all things have become new.” Nine seconds. The Greek of the first half has no verb in it at all — it reads closer to if anyone in Christ: new creation — which is why translations differ on whether the new thing is the person or everything around them. Related verses →

    King James

    Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

  8. Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.Philippians 3:13-14 · World English Bible

    “Forgetting the things which are behind.” Nineteen seconds, and the standard reading where a service wants resolve rather than comfort. Paul is writing from custody and says plainly at the start of it that he has not arrived yet.

    King James

    Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

  9. Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”Joshua 1:9 · World English Bible

    “Be strong and courageous.” Ten seconds. Spoken to someone taking over a job from a man everybody preferred, which is a more specific situation than the greetings cards suggest. Related verses →

    King James

    Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

  10. For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 · World English Bible

    A time for everything. Sixty-two seconds — the longest reading here by a distance, and the one most often cut short. Read whole, it includes killing, war and hate, and it makes no promise that the coming year is one of the good entries on the list. Related verses →

    King James

    To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

  11. Praise the LORD, my soul! All that is within me, praise his holy name! Praise the LORD, my soul, and don’t forget all his benefits, who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your desire with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.Psalms 103:1-5 · World English Bible

    “Your youth is renewed like the eagle's.” Twenty-six seconds. Suits a covenant or communion service, and it is a list of things already done rather than things hoped for, which reads differently at the start of a year. Related verses →

    King James

    Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

  12. ‘The LORD bless you, and keep you. The LORD make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you. The LORD lift up his face towards you, and give you peace.’Numbers 6:24-26 · World English Bible

    The Aaronic blessing. Thirteen seconds, and the oldest words on this page — given as the wording priests were to use over people. It is a blessing rather than a reading, so it belongs at the end of a service rather than in the middle.

    King James

    The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

  13. He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.”Revelation 21:5 · World English Bible

    “Behold, I am making all things new.” Ten seconds. Present tense, and not about a calendar — it is said at the end of everything rather than at the start of a year. Related verses →

    King James

    And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

  14. “This month shall be to you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.Exodus 12:2 · World English Bible

    Eight seconds, and the strangest inclusion here until you read it. This is the verse where a new year is instituted in Scripture, and it is not in January. See below.

    King James

    This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

  15. In the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck, in the same day, the LORD’s hand was on me, and he brought me there.Ezekiel 40:1 · World English Bible

    Eighteen seconds. A date stamp on a vision, and the reason it is on this page is the phrase in the middle of it: in the beginning of the year. Underneath those English words sit the two Hebrew words that now name the Jewish New Year. Nobody translates them as a festival.

    King James

    In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten, in the selfsame day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and brought me thither.

The lists give you “new” verses. The year verses are different ones.

Every New Year list runs on the word new — a new thing, a new creation, new every morning, all things new. Those are five of the fifteen above and they earn their place. But none of them mentions a year. The passages that actually do are somewhere else, and they are quieter.

Deuteronomy 11:12 is one, and it is a description of land rather than of a resolution:

a land which the LORD your God cares for. The LORD your God’s eyes are always on it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.Deuteronomy 11:12 · World English Bible

Psalm 65:11 is the other, and it is worth opening the King James toggle underneath it, because the two translations visibly part company:

You crown the year with your bounty. Your carts overflow with abundance.Psalms 65:11 · World English Bible

The King James has “thy paths drop fatness”; the World English Bible has “your carts overflow with abundance”. The Hebrew is not in dispute — this is a translation choice, not a manuscript difference. The word is ma'gal, glossed “an entrenchment, track”: a wheel rut. The King James renders the rut; the modern version renders what made it. The picture underneath both is a cart so loaded that the ground it crosses is left richer.

Neither verse is about starting again. Both are about a year being attended to while it goes past, which is a smaller and more usable thing to read out on 31 December than a promise of a fresh start.

1 January is not the Bible's new year

There is a new year in Scripture. It is instituted in Exodus, in the middle of the first Passover instructions:

“This month shall be to you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.Exodus 12:2 · World English Bible

The month is named a few chapters later, and it is a spring month — Abib, later called Nisan:

Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the LORD your God; for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.Deuteronomy 16:1 · World English Bible

So the biblical year opens in spring, at Passover. The autumn festival that eventually became the Jewish New Year is in Leviticus, and it is not called a new year there either:

“Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, there shall be a solemn rest for you, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.Leviticus 23:24 · World English Bible

A month, a day, trumpets and a rest. The word year does not appear in it.

The phrase we now use for the Jewish New Year does appear in Scripture, exactly once as far as we can find — in the date at the top of Ezekiel's last vision, quoted in full above. Both our translations render it “in the beginning of the year”. The Hebrew underneath is b'rosh ha-shanah — literally “at the head of the year”. It is a date on a document, not the name of a feast.

Later Jewish tradition did not settle on one new year at all. The Mishnah opens its tractate on the subject by naming four of them — the first of Nisan for kings and festivals, the first of Elul for tithing animals, the first of Tishrei for years, and Shevat for trees. The Jewish Encyclopedia describes the older autumn reckoning and the later legislation that made Abib the first month sitting side by side rather than one replacing the other.

January is Roman. The Roman civil year moved to the first of January in 153 BC, when the consuls began taking office on that date — a century before Julius Caesar's calendar reform, and for an administrative reason rather than a religious one.

And it is more recent than most people assume in English. For centuries the legal year in England began on 25 March, not 1 January. That only changed with the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, which moved the start of the year to 1 January from 1752 and dropped eleven days in September of that year to catch up with the rest of Europe.

None of which is an argument against reading Scripture on 1 January. It is a date like any other and people are paying attention on it, which is more than can be said for most Tuesdays. It is only worth knowing that the Bible is not marking the same occasion you are — so a verse read tonight is being borrowed for the purpose, not quoted about it.

What a watchnight service actually is

The New Year's Eve service has a traceable origin. John Wesley held his first covenant service in 1755, using words adapted from the Puritan writer Richard Alleine, and published the order in a pamphlet in 1780. The United Methodist Church describes it as a service for renewing one's covenant with God annually, and notes that it is the covenant service that is now commonly used as a watchnight service on New Year's Eve. Wesley's watchnights were not originally a December thing at all — they were held several times a year, and the calendar narrowed them down later.

The other tradition on that date is American. On the night of 31 December 1862, congregations sat up waiting for the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln issued on 1 January 1863. That night is remembered as Freedom's Eve, and the watchnight services held in Black churches on New Year's Eve continue to mark it. If you are choosing a reading for one of those services, that is the occasion it sits inside, and it is not the same occasion as a resolution.

If you only want one

For a card or a message, Numbers 6:24-26. It asks for nothing from the person receiving it, takes thirteen seconds, and is the oldest thing on this page.

For a service, Lamentations 3:22-23, read slowly, with the note that it was written in a ruined city. It is the one reading here that works for the people in the room who are not looking forward to the new year.

Or have one find you.

Push From God sends a verse chosen for what's actually going on in your life, when it decides you need it. It's on its way to the App Store.

One email when it launches. No newsletter, no drip sequence, no sharing your address. Unsubscribe is a reply.

Questions

What is the best Bible verse for the New Year?

Lamentations 3:22-23 — mercies new every morning — is the one most services use, and it takes about eleven seconds to read aloud. Isaiah 43:18-19 and Jeremiah 29:11 are the other two that appear on almost every list. If you want a blessing rather than a reading, Numbers 6:24-26 is older than all of them. All fifteen passages on this page are quoted in full in both translations.

Is 1 January the new year in the Bible?

No. Exodus 12:2 institutes a new year in the spring month later called Abib or Nisan, at Passover, and the autumn festival in Leviticus 23:24 is described by its month, day and trumpets rather than as a new year. The 1 January date is Roman: the Roman civil year moved to it in 153 BC. In England the legal year began on 25 March until the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 changed it from 1752.

What is a watchnight service?

A church service held late on New Year's Eve, usually running to midnight. John Wesley held the first covenant service in 1755 and it became the standard New Year's Eve service in Methodism. In Black American churches it also marks Freedom's Eve — the night of 31 December 1862, when congregations waited for the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln issued on 1 January 1863.

Can we print these readings in an order of service or a New Year card?

Yes, with no permission needed. The World English Bible and the King James Version are both public domain, so you can reproduce any of them in an order of service, a newsletter or a card without a licence or a fee. Modern translations such as the NIV and ESV are copyrighted and limit how much you may reprint.

Related