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Bible verses for loneliness

Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13:5 carry the same promise, six centuries apart: he will not fail you nor forsake you. Psalm 68:6 is the one worth knowing about — God sets the lonely in families. It's a promise not just of company in the abstract but of actual people, which is usually what loneliness is missing.

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

  1. Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or scared of them, for the LORD your God himself is who goes with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you.”Deuteronomy 31:6 · World English Bible

    He will not fail you nor forsake you — said to a whole nation and to one man in the same breath.

    King James

    Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

  2. Turn to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted.Psalms 25:16 · World English Bible

    Turn to me and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted. Permission to say it plainly.

    King James

    Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.

  3. Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.”Hebrews 13:5 · World English Bible

    Quotes Deuteronomy six centuries later, which is its own kind of argument for the promise holding.

    King James

    Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

  4. God sets the lonely in families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.Psalms 68:6 · World English Bible

    God sets the lonely in families. A promise of actual people, which is usually the missing thing.

    King James

    God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.

  5. teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.Matthew 28:20 · World English Bible

    The last sentence of Matthew's gospel: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

    King James

    Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

  6. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.John 14:18 · World English Bible

    I will not leave you orphans. The word choice is deliberate and it lands.

    King James

    I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

  7. Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.Psalms 139:7-10 · World English Bible

    A list of places you could go and still be known, ending at the sea and the dawn.

    King James

    Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

  8. The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.”Genesis 2:18 · World English Bible

    In a chapter where everything is called good, the first not-good thing is a person being alone.

    King James

    And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

  9. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.Psalms 27:10 · World English Bible

    When father and mother forsake me. Specific, unsentimental, and it doesn't pretend it didn't happen.

    King James

    When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.

  10. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 8:38-39 · World English Bible

    The longest list in the New Testament of things that cannot separate you from love.

    King James

    For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

  11. Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. Yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.Isaiah 41:10 · World English Bible

    I am with you — the first of four promises, and the one that matters on this page.

    King James

    Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

  12. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.Psalms 23:4 · World English Bible

    You are with me. Three words at the exact centre of the psalm, and the point of it.

    King James

    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

  13. Look on my right, and see; for there is no one who is concerned for me. Refuge has fled from me. No one cares for my soul.Psalms 142:4 · World English Bible

    No one cares for my soul. Kept in the songbook in the first person, with no correction attached in the same breath.

    King James

    I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.

Two kinds of alone

There's the loneliness of having nobody, and the loneliness of being surrounded by people who don't know you. Scripture addresses both. Psalm 139:7-10 is for the second — a long list of places you could go where you'd still be known, ending in the sea and the dawn. Genesis 2:18 is for the first, and it's remarkable: in a chapter where everything is repeatedly called good, the first thing declared not good is a person being alone. Loneliness is not treated as a weakness to get over. It's treated as a real lack.

One Hebrew word, twice on this page

Two of the passages above use the same word, and the English hides it because they get different translations. Here is the first, which is the speaker describing himself:

Turn to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted.Psalms 25:16 · World English Bible

And here is the second, which is not about him at all:

God sets the lonely in families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.Psalms 68:6 · World English Bible

Desolate in one, lonely (or solitary, in the King James) in the other. Both are yachid, the same Hebrew word — confirmed in the interlinear at Psalm 25:16 and Psalm 68:6. So one verse on this page is a man saying I am yachid, and another is a promise about what God does with people who are.

And the word's ordinary sense is not a feeling. It is the only one:

He said, “Now take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”Genesis 22:2 · World English Bible
Jephthah came to Mizpah to his house; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter.Judges 11:34 · World English Bible

Both translations say only son and only child there, for the same word they render desolate and lonely in the psalms. The thread running through all four is being the single one of your kind — unaccompanied rather than unloved. Isaac and Jephthah's daughter are not sad in those verses. They are irreplaceable, and alone in a category.

That is not a translation dispute and not a manuscript question. It is simply something the Hebrew does that no English version can carry across, because English has no one word covering an only child and a person with nobody. Worth knowing if Psalm 68:6 has ever sounded to you like a promise to cheer you up. It is not addressed to a mood. It is addressed to a household with one person in it.

The rest of that verse is the least certain line on this page

Open the King James toggle under Psalm 68:6 and the second clause is a different sentence. The modern rendering has God bringing out the prisoners with singing; the King James has those bound with chains. Those are not variants of one idea.

The word is kosharot, and it occurs exactly once in the Hebrew Bible — here. Brown-Driver-Briggs glosses it prosperity. The commentaries lay the options out: Hengstenberg, Kay, Cheyne and the Revised Version read into prosperity, the Septuagint and Vulgate have something like with fortitude, the Syriac has prosperity again, and the King James kept the chains. Keil and Delitzsch note it appears nowhere else, which is the whole problem: there is no second occurrence to check it against.

We are not going to settle it, and nothing on this page depends on it. The first clause — God sets the solitary in families — is not in doubt in any translation we have printed. It is worth saying plainly, though, that the most quoted verse about loneliness in the Bible has a second half nobody is sure of.

Somebody already said it worse than you would

If the verses above feel like they are answering a question you have not managed to ask, this one is in the songbook too:

Look on my right, and see; for there is no one who is concerned for me. Refuge has fled from me. No one cares for my soul.Psalms 142:4 · World English Bible

No one concerned for me. Refuge has fled. No one cares for my soul. That was kept, in the first person, with no correction attached in the same breath. Whatever else is true, the complaint is allowed.

The verse for family that let you down

Psalm 27:10 — when my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. It's a specific, unsentimental verse for a specific, unsentimental situation, and it doesn't pretend the forsaking didn't happen.

Practical

Psalm 68:6 puts lonely people in families, and in practice that has usually meant other people doing something. If you're on this page and you've been alone a long time, the useful move is often the small, dull one: a church midweek thing, a choir, a volunteering shift, anything with a fixed time and a reason to come back. And if the loneliness has tipped into something heavier, that's worth telling a doctor about — the NHS has practical guidance on it, including what to do when the ordinary advice has not worked.

Two things worth knowing if you have been treating this as a personal failing. It is common enough that the World Health Organization set up a Commission on Social Connection in November 2023, co-chaired by the then US Surgeon General, treating loneliness as a health matter rather than a private one. And Genesis 2:18 got there first: in a chapter that keeps calling things good, being alone is the first thing called not good. Neither the doctors nor the text treat it as something you brought on yourself.

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For another quiet evening

God sets the lonely in families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.

Psalm 68:6

You said the weekends are long since the move. This one is about actual people, not just comfort.

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Questions

What is the best Bible verse for loneliness?

Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13:5 both promise that God will never leave nor forsake you. Psalm 68:6 — God sets the lonely in families — is the one that promises company rather than only comfort.

Does the Bible say it's bad to be alone?

Genesis 2:18 says it is not good for a person to be alone — notable because it appears in a chapter where everything else is repeatedly called good. Scripture treats loneliness as a genuine lack rather than a personal failing.

What Bible verse helps when your family has let you down?

Psalm 27:10 — when my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. It names the abandonment directly rather than explaining it away.

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