animal cruelty
What does the Bible say about animal cruelty? These are the passages readers found most helpful — tap any citation to read it in context.
14 passages · most helpful first
10The just one knows the lives of his beasts. But the inner most parts of the impious are cruel.
19For this reason, the passing away of man and of beasts is one, and the condition of both is equal. For as a man dies, so also do they die. All things breathe similarly, and man has nothing more than beast; for all these are subject to vanity.
5If you see the donkey of one who hates you, fallen under its burden, you shall not pass by without lifting it up with him.
23Be diligent to know the countenance of your cattle, and consider your own flocks,
4You shall not muzzle an ox as it is treading out your crops in the field.
9The Lord is sweet to all things, and his compassion is upon all his works.
26Consider the birds of the air, how they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much greater value than they are?
28And God blessed them, and he said, “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the flying creatures of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
6Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? And yet not one of these is forgotten in the sight of God.
30and for all the animals of the land, and for all the flying things of the air, and for everything that moves upon the earth and in which there is a living soul, so that they may have these on which to feed.” And so it became.
32And the Angel said to him: “Why did you beat your donkey three times? I have come to be an adversary to you, because your way is perverse and contrary to me.
11The multitude of your sacrifices, what is that to me, says the Lord? I am full. I do not desire holocausts of rams, nor the fat of fatlings, nor the blood of calves and of lambs and of he-goats.
4“What man among you, who has one hundred sheep, and if he will have lost one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the one whom he had lost, until he finds it? 5And when he has found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6And returning home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them: ‘Congratulate me! For I have found my sheep, which had been lost.’ 7I say to you, that there will be so much more joy in heaven over one sinner repenting, than over the ninety-nine just, who do not need to repent.
3Whoever immolates an ox, it is as if he slaughters a man. Whoever sacrifices a sheep, it is as if he is smashing the head of a dog. Whoever offers an oblation, it is as if he is offering swine’s blood. Whoever makes remembrance with incense, it is as if he is blessing an idol. All these things, they have chosen according to their own ways, and their soul has taken delight in their own abominations.