Bible Verses for Couples and Friendships

Looking for Bible verses for couples, friendships, and other relationships? People have many relationships in life. They have relationships with friends, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, siblings, and children. They have relationships with coworkers and employers/employees. They have neighbors and friends on social media. They have relationships with people in their small group at church.

Human beings are made to exist in relationships. They are even born into families. No matter how isolated a person may be, there are always relationships in his or her life.

Relationships can be challenging, to say the least. It can be hard to navigate the difficult experiences and learn how to live in healthy, thriving relationships.

Because of the various types of relationships we have with others, when reading scriptures about interacting with others it can be difficult to know what passages apply to which kinds of situations.

There are Scriptures about relationships in general, and some that are more specific to the type of relationship. Some, as you will see, speak of something specific but embody a principle that can reach across many relationships in your life.

There are also countless examples (both bad and good) of people in relationships in scripture to be able to look to. This article will provide an overview of Bible verses for couples and verses about friendship.

Bible Verses for Friendship

Do to others as you would have them do to you. – Luke 6:31

This is often called “The Golden Rule.” You want friends who are loyal, interested in your life, trustworthy, and kind. You may want friends with whom you can be yourself and take off your masks. You may want friends who remember you, who honor you, who love you. If you want these friendships, then the Bible says you should treat others this way.

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. – Proverbs 18:24

If you have had “friends” who have hurt you and betrayed your trust multiple times, then you understand what it is to have an unreliable friend. You want people in your life whom you can count on. They are out there. Pray that God will provide those types of friends. Consider their track records. Have you seen how they were unreliable in other relationships? Assume they would be that way with you.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. – Proverbs 17:17

Good friends are those who love unconditionally, through good times and hard times. When you find a friend like this, you will know.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. – John 15:12-15

This is similar to the Golden Rule. You need to be willing to do for another what you expect them to do for you. If you want to be loved unconditionally, show another unconditional love. If you want someone to serve you, then serve him. If you want someone to remember you, remember her.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. – Colossians 3:12-14

Though this passage applies to all relationships, it is good to remember for friendships, too. Be the person who shows compassion and kindness, the one who forgives and does not hold the grudge. You will draw wonderful friends in your life if you are.

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. – Galatians 6:2

Again, this is the idea that a good friend is someone willing to sacrifice for another. Do not let your friends suffer alone. Be there for them. Do something for them that they cannot do. Help meet their needs today.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves. – Philippians 2:3

Real friendship is not selfish. You have needs that need to be met, too, but remember that no one wants to be friends with a selfish person.

The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. – Proverbs 12:26

This simply points out the importance of choosing your friends. You do not have to be friends with everyone, nor should you be. You need to be kind and gracious and compassionate to all people, but you do not have to be friends. Choose your friends wisely.

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. – Proverbs 27:17

A good friend pushes you to become better and holds you accountable. Be that kind of friend, too.

Bible Verses for Couples

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” – Genesis 1:27-28

God created male and female in His image to be in a relationship with each other, to multiply and fill the earth with people. Though not all couples will have children, this was the mandate and purpose for the original males and females created.

The LORD God said, “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him.” … So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.” That is what a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. – Genesis 2:18–24

God created woman to be the perfect companion for man. The two were meant to leave their fathers and mothers and become one together sexually and emotionally. God created this as a holy union, not to be destroyed by infidelity or other things that can break up a marriage. He intended for the relationship between man and wife to last.

If you have gone through a divorce or are in the middle of one with someone who will not fight for you anymore, remember that God is gracious and kind and compassionate. He loves you through that, even though His heart is for marriages to last.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. – Song of Solomon 8:6-7

This passage is part of a dialogue between lovers. In a relationship, your love should be this strong. Love does not mean “butterflies in your stomach” all of the time. It is a daily choice to love your spouse through everything.

For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. – Isaiah 54:5

This is important for couples to remember that their partners are not God. They cannot be perfect, and they cannot love perfectly. Only God is the “perfect husband.” Your spouse will not complete you.

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. – Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

This is a passage often quoted at weddings. The idea is that a cord of three strands is stronger than one. A marriage is strongest when God is at the center. He is the glue that holds a relationship together.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:21-33

This is a long passage that has been taught many times in the course of history. People from theological backgrounds see it differently. For this article, this passage just shows how a husband is to love his wife, in a serving and sacrificial way, and how a wife should love her husband by respecting him.

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me. – Ruth 1: 16-17

Though this passage is not about a marriage relationship (the context is about a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law), many have applied it to the relationship between couples. When you commit to your spouse, this is what you are promising: to not leave, to stand by his or her side, to go where he or she goes.

An important note: You do not have to stay with an unfaithful spouse. Blindly following someone who does not love you is not what marriage is about.

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’

‘What did Moses command you?’ he replied.

They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’

‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied. ‘But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” – Mark 10:2-9

Ideally, a marriage should not end in divorce. God did not want this unified relationship to be broken, but this is a broken world, and divorce is part of it. Jesus and Paul talk about the only two situations in which it is acceptable to end a marriage in divorce in other parts of the New Testament.

And now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. – 1 Cor. 13:13

This last passage is also often quoted at weddings, even though it has direct reference to relationships in the church. It is an important list, though. If you are not loving your spouse in these ways, are you really loving them at all?

Christian Counseling for Relationship Issues

There are many other Bible verses for couples and friendships to show you how to have healthy relationships, and there are stories you can look to for examples. God created you for relationships, but he knows that often they are broken and tattered and in need of truth and healing.

Allow these Bible verses for couples and friendships to breathe life back into your relationships and guide you as you navigate through them. If you are struggling in some of your relationships and need someone to help you, consider seeking counseling to process this a bit more.