He heals the broken in heart,
and binds up their wounds.
People looking for healing verses are often frightened or exhausted, for themselves or someone they love. This guide gathers passages Christians pray with in illness and reads them carefully — so that comfort does not turn into a promise Scripture never made.
Please note: nothing here replaces medical care. Seeking treatment is consistent with faith; Scripture itself honors physicians (see below).
God who heals
He heals the broken in heart,
and binds up their wounds.
Healing of the brokenhearted: in this psalm the image is of exiles restored, bodies and community together.
He said, “If you will diligently listen to the Lord your God’s voice, and will do that which is right in His eyes, and will pay attention to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”
“I am the LORD who heals you” — spoken to Israel in the wilderness, after God made bitter water drinkable.
Jesus’ healings
The Gospels present Jesus’ healings as signs that God’s kingdom has come near. They often restore people to their communities as well as to health: lepers who could return home, a woman excluded for twelve years (Mark 5:25-34).
Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Good News of the Kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness among the people.
Prayer for the sick
Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
The elders pray and anoint the sick with oil.
Catholic and Orthodox Christians see this passage as one root of the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. Many Protestant churches practice prayer and anointing by elders. All read it as a call to bring the sick into the community’s prayer, not to replace other care.
Physicians are a gift
The Book of Sirach, part of Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, explicitly honors doctors and medicine.
Honor a physician according to your need with the honors due to him,
for truly the Lord has created him.
For healing comes from the Most High,
and he shall receive a gift from the king.
The skill of the physician will lift up his head.
He will be admired in the sight of great men.
The Lord created medicines out of the earth.
A prudent man will not despise them.
When healing does not come
Paul asked three times to be relieved of an affliction he called a “thorn in the flesh.” It was not removed.
By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, a thorn in the flesh was given to me: a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively. Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.
This passage is important for anyone told that unanswered prayer means weak faith. Paul’s faith was not weak, and the answer he received was grace to endure.
The promise beyond this life
Christian hope looks to a final healing that this life does not complete.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”
A note on Isaiah 53:5
“By His wounds we are healed” is often quoted about physical healing. In its context, Isaiah 53 speaks of a servant who bears the sins of others, and 1 Peter 2:24 applies verse 5 to healing from sin. Matthew 8:17 applies the verse before it (“He has borne our sickness”) to Jesus’ healings of the sick, and some traditions also see physical healing in verse 5; it should not be read as a guarantee of recovery.