What does the Bible say about revenge?

The desire for revenge is one of the most powerful human emotions. When we are wronged, everything in us cries out for the offender to pay. The Bible takes this desire seriously — it never dismisses the reality of injustice — but it consistently redirects the impulse from human hands to divine justice.

This guide traces the Bible’s teaching on vengeance from the Mosaic law through the Psalms to Jesus’s radical command to love your enemies, showing how Scripture both honours the demand for justice and transforms the way it is pursued.

The law of "an eye for an eye" in Exodus 21:24 is often misread as endorsing revenge. In context, it was a limitation on revenge: the punishment must not exceed the offence. In a world of blood feuds and escalating tribal violence, proportional justice was a moral advance.

Leviticus 19:18 is even more direct: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The Old Testament law already contained the seeds of the ethic Jesus would later amplify.

Deuteronomy 32:35 declares, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." Paul quotes this in Romans 12:19, telling believers to leave room for God’s wrath rather than taking justice into their own hands. The principle is not that wrongdoing goes unpunished, but that the right to punish belongs to God.

The Psalms model this honestly. The imprecatory psalms — prayers that call down judgment on enemies — are sometimes shocking. But they channel the desire for revenge into prayer rather than action. They hand the grievance to God and leave the outcome with him.

Jesus took the prohibition of revenge further than any teacher before him. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye... but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." This is not passivity; it is a refusal to let the enemy dictate your behaviour.

On the cross, Jesus practised what he preached: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Stephen, the first martyr, echoed this prayer as he was stoned. The New Testament presents forgiveness not as weakness but as the ultimate display of power over evil.