What this page covers
What does the Bible say about friendship and what makes a true friend?
Passages on friendship between people, chiefly from the wisdom books, the story of David and Jonathan, and Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, with Job’s friends as a warning. Love in general and family relationships have their own pages.
The Bible’s wisdom books speak often about friends, and their picture is practical: a friend is someone who stays. “A friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17), and one true friend is worth more than a crowd of companions (Proverbs 18:24).
What a friend does
Scripture’s friends lift each other up, literally in Ecclesiastes 4:9–12, where the one who falls alone has no one to help him up. They also tell the truth. “Iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17), and “the wounds of a friend are faithful” (Proverbs 27:6): a friend’s hard word can be a gift. Sirach, in the Catholic and Orthodox Old Testament, calls a faithful friend a treasure and “a life-saving medicine” (Sirach 6:14–17), and adds practical caution: test a new friend before trusting him, because some friends disappear in hard times (Sirach 6:7–8).
David and Jonathan
The friendship of David and Jonathan is the Old Testament’s great example. Jonathan, the king’s son, bound himself to David by covenant (1 Samuel 18:1–3) and later protected him from his own father, Saul. When Jonathan died, David lamented, “Your love to me was wonderful” (2 Samuel 1:26). Jewish and Christian tradition have long held them up as a model of faithful friendship; some modern readers interpret their bond differently, and the text’s language of love and covenant is worth reading in full.
Friends of Jesus
At the Last Supper Jesus tells His disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends,” and then: “I have called you friends” (John 15:13–15). Friendship here is not only a human good but a way Jesus describes His relationship with His followers, just as Abraham was “called the friend of God” (James 2:23).
A warning from Job
Job’s three friends start well. They travel to him, weep, and sit in silence with him for seven days (Job 2:11–13). Then they begin to explain his suffering as punishment, and Job calls them “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). At the end of the book God says they have not spoken rightly (Job 42:7), and Job prays for them. Their story is a lasting lesson for anyone sitting with a suffering friend: presence often helps more than explanations.
Passages, in context
A friend loves at all times;
and a brother is born for adversity.
Latin correspondence unavailable for this passage.
“A friend loves at all times”: friendship is proved by staying when things go wrong.
A collection of Solomon’s proverbs
A man of many companions may be ruined,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Latin correspondence unavailable for this passage.
Many companions are no substitute for one friend “who sticks closer than a brother”: depth over numbers.
A collection of Solomon’s proverbs
Iron sharpens iron;
so a man sharpens his friend’s countenance.
Ferrum ferro exacuitur, et homo exacuit faciem amici sui.Proverbia 27:17 · Clementine Vulgate
Iron sharpens iron: good friends make each other better, which sometimes means friction.
Proverbs on everyday relationships
The wounds of a friend are faithful,
although the kisses of an enemy are profuse.
Meliora sunt vulnera diligentis quam fraudulenta oscula odientis.Proverbia 27:6 · Clementine Vulgate
“The wounds of a friend are faithful”: honest correction from a friend is worth more than flattery.
Proverbs on everyday relationships
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone? If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Latin correspondence unavailable for this passage.
Two are better than one: someone to lift you when you fall, and a cord of three strands not quickly broken.
The Teacher reflecting on toil and loneliness
When he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day, and wouldn’t let him go home to his father’s house any more. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.
Et factum est cum complesset loqui ad Saul, anima Jonathæ conglutinata est animæ David, et dilexit eum Jonathas quasi animam suam. Tulitque eum Saul in die illa, et non concessit ei ut reverteretur in domum patris sui. Inierunt autem David et Jonathas fœdus: diligebat enim eum quasi animam suam.1 Regum 18:1–3 · Clementine Vulgate
Jonathan’s soul is “knit with the soul of David,” and the two make a covenant, a friendship that later cost Jonathan his father’s favor.
After David defeats Goliath, at Saul’s court
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from My Father, I have made known to you.
Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut animam suam ponat qui pro amicis suis. Vos amici mei estis, si feceritis quæ ego præcipio vobis. Jam non dicam vos servos: quia servus nescit quid faciat dominus ejus. Vos autem dixi amicos: quia omnia quæcumque audivi a Patre meo, nota feci vobis.Joannes 15:13–15 · Clementine Vulgate
Jesus defines the greatest love as laying down one’s life for one’s friends, then calls His disciples friends rather than servants.
Jesus at the Last Supper
A faithful friend is a strong defense.
He who has found him has found a treasure.
There is nothing that can be taken in exchange for a faithful friend.
His excellency is beyond price.
A faithful friend is a life-saving medicine.
Those who fear the Lord will find him.
He who fears the Lord directs his friendship properly;
for as he is, so is his neighbor also.
Latin correspondence unavailable for this passage.
“A faithful friend is a strong defense”: a treasure beyond price, found by those who fear the Lord.
Ben Sira’s wisdom on choosing friends, a deuterocanonical book
Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him. When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
Igitur audientes tres amici Job omne malum quod accidisset ei, venerunt singuli de loco suo, Eliphaz Themanites, et Baldad Suhites, et Sophar Naamathites. Condixerant enim ut pariter venientes visitarent eum, et consolarentur. Cumque elevassent procul oculos suos, non cognoverunt eum, et exclamantes ploraverunt, scissisque vestibus sparserunt pulverem super caput suum in cælum. Et sederunt cum eo in terra septem diebus et septem noctibus: et nemo loquebatur ei verbum: videbant enim dolorem esse vehementem.Job 2:11–13 · Clementine Vulgate
Job’s friends begin well, sitting with him in silence for seven days. Their later speeches, which God rebukes, make them Scripture’s warning about comfort that turns into judgment.
The prologue of the Book of Job
How this differs from related topics
Love covers love broadly; this page looks at one kind of relationship: chosen, mutual and tested over time. Family covers bonds of birth and household, though Scripture often blurs the line, as in Ruth and Naomi. Comforting a grieving friend is also treated under Grief.