Bible Verses For The Anxious And Full Of Terror

by Mallory Ortberg · February 8, 2016

2 Timothy 1:7

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Except for you! Except for you! The spirit of fear has made your heart her home, and she will never leave you! No power, no love, no soundness of mind – the spirit of fear is yours!

 

Mark 5:1-13

Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes. And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him. And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.”

For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” Then He asked him, “What is your name?”

And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains. So all the demons begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.” And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea. And the spirits have been waiting for you ever since! The spirits have learned your name, and they have been waiting for you! They will surround you like a cloud of bees and enter you next! The spirits have been waiting for you!

 

Hebrews 12:1-3

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. But you are not among us! The cloud does not surround you! The witnesses do not know your name! There is no safety for you, none at all for you and none for your name or the children of your name! The cloud of witnesses will not surround you, and it will not bear you up!

 

Matthew 22:8-12

Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw someone there who did not have on a wedding garment. And it was you! So he said to you, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And you were speechless! Your mouth was empty! You carried no defense! Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind them hand and foot, take them away, and cast them into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ And they did! And they will! And you are!

 

Jeremiah 45

The word that the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah:

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you: You said, ‘Woe is me! The Lord has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.’

Thus says the Lord: I am going to break down what I have built (your whole self), and pluck up what I have planted (your whole heart). And you, do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for I am going to bring disaster upon your flesh, says the Lord; and I will give you your life as a prize of war in every place to which you may go. I will leave your skin on as a warning to all who see you pass. You will find no rest, and you will be given additional sorrow, and you will groan beyond the point of weariness, and your soul will not find its end in me.’

 

2 Samuel 18:9

Then Absalom met the servants of David. Absalom rode on a mule. The mule went under the thick boughs of a great terebinth tree, and his head caught in the terebinth; so he was left hanging between heaven and earth. And the mule which was under him went on, so he was strangled among its branches. So shall it end with you, with no purchase for your feet and no rest for your head!

 

Genesis 1:26-31

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good, except for you. And God saw you, and the man saw you, and the woman saw you, and they saw that you were not good. And they saw that you had dominion over nothing, not even yourself. And they turned away from you, and went into the garden. 

 

Numbers 16:26-33

“Turn away from the tents of these wicked people, and touch nothing of theirs, or you will be swept away for all their sins.” So all the people got away from your dwellings, and you came out and stood at the entrance of your tents, together with your family and your little ones and all the works of your hands. And Moses said, “This is how you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works; it has not been of my own accord: If these people die a natural death, or if a natural fate comes on them, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up, with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these people have despised the Lord.”

As soon as he finished speaking all these words, the ground underneath you was split apart. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed you up, along with your households—everyone who belonged to you and all their goods, and their names also. So you with all that belonged to you went down alive into Sheol! The earth closed over you! and over all memories of you! and over your name! And you perished, you perished utterly, you perished right out from the remembrance of the assembly! 

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.


53 Comments

  1. Eris +46

    That’s just mean.

    (It is a good illustration of how I felt in church growing up, though. Nothing like the persistent fear of “am I saved enough?”)

      1. Eris +13

        OH HEY, so were we. (Presbyterian by denomination, but every spring there was a sermon series on Calvinism, and then there was the issue of predestination and aaaaaaaah)

    2. floridagal1 +35

      There are few verses I hate more than the “perfect love casts out fear” one. There are others, but that one in particular is a big part of why it took so long for me to get that the rabid anxiety disorder wasn’t a moral or religious failing on my part.

    1. oneclockworklemon +27

      I believe firmly in my heart that a Jewish Mother™ in proper form could probably actually make God feel guilty for not calling often enough to check in.

  3. autumnlorayne +15

    This is pretty much how I felt when I was a little kid. “I know god is all-powerful and all, but seriously, bad things are going to happen to me – me! – I know it!!”

  4. bookwormV +50

    I genuinely don’t know the Bible well enough to be 100% certain about which bits Mallory has made up.

    2. bookwormV +25

      (My dad’s description of how a Catholic upbringing left him with a permanent sense of existential despair and misery makes it all seem quite plausible!)

    3. Mallory Ortberg +23

      if it ends in an exclamation point and is addressed directly to the second person, it was from me

  8. brzzzz +13

    “The cloud of witnesses will not bear you up” is pretty much the theme of every nightmare of mine ever.

  11. oneclockworklemon +28

    I love the ones that come from the New Testament, which, according to most of my Christian friends, is completely devoid of all the fire & brimstone of the Old Testament.

    I don’t think any of them have ever actually read the Bible tho.

    ETA: I’m 100% certain that the thing about the wedding garments is why Southern Women are so damn weird about being out of the house without makeup on.

    1. green +16

      No, no they have not. “Fire and brimstone” mostly originates from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (a city of brutal, inhospitable, greedy rapists), and Israel is threatened with the same punishment should they abandon their covenant, as are some other nations. Messed up! But! The OT never suggests a “hell” as a place of eternal fiery Satanic torment. Hell/Heaven as punishment/reward/motivation to act right or suffer hard is not an Old Testament (/Jewish) thing.

      Few things make me as crazy as people who have not actually read their book. (That is probably true for all of us here.)

      I really appreciate Mallory’s bible fixation.

      1. oneclockworklemon +12

        I’m a cultural Jew who attended Baptist elementary, junior high, and high school who went to college to study Islam. I’m right there with you, but I choose to find the whole thing comical.

        1. green +9

          Yes, fair! (also, wow!) But it bugs me even as a purely text-oriented person, which is what makes this joke funny. Like, adults who have only watched War & Peace & not read the book would be more prudent than many alleged scripture people. This is old sad American news I guess. (I really want to watch War & Peace & have not read the book.)

          1. dido_and_zdenka +2

            I’d say you’re best off just watching it and reading the book later.. they’re quite different entities and the series is really good.

      2. shellygrrl +19

        The Hebrew word sheol (mistranslated as “hell” in the Old Testament) means “world/land of the dead”. And there are three different Greek words mistranslated as “hell” in the New Testament: hades (the underworld in Greek mythology; “sheol” was consistently translated to this in the Septuagint), Gehenna (actual place that was a landfill in Jesus’ day; today it is a garden), and tartarus (the depths of hades, where only demons live). So neither Testament had a concept of “hell” like we do. Various early Christians believed that everyone would eventually be reconciled to God (universal reconciliation/restoration).

        It wasn’t until Tertullian and Augustine that a theology of a place where the wicked are punished in proportion to the reward of the just became widely accepted. In the sixth century, it became official doctrine, and people like Origen, who believed in universal reconciliation, were counted as heretics.

        And a lot of the hellish imagery in popular culture, and even Christian culture, is from Dante’s Inferno.

        1. Frumiosa +21

          Adding to your very informative post: Gehenna is a little valley right outside the Old City in West Jerusalem. It’s pretty much a public park. There are outdoor concerts there and a tiny artist colony. It became associated with “hell” from Temple-period Old City dwellers telling each other “go to Gehenna”, i.e. get outta here and go to that garbage dump, asshole.

          In modern Hebrew, the equivalent of “go to hell” is “lech l’Azazel”, which literally means “go to the cliff from where the high priests would throw the scapegoat to gruesomely atone for the nation’s sins on Yom Kippur.” We don’t bother with the afterlife in our insults; who has that kind of time?

        2. green +10

          yes! people would burn the refuse they dumped into Gehenna (a hellenized version of gei-hinnom -i.e. hinnom valley) but it is also where (according to text, chronicles somewhere & various jerusalemites) king achaz sacrificed his sons in fire, so hinnom valley is known for being a place where bad, people-burning shit went down. mark, matthew & james come to attach the unquenchable nature of that fire to whatever word is interpreted as hell in the NT this way. though the lake of fire is 100% a feature of “hades” in revelations.

          the early christians were so much more chill & less literal than many of today’s as they were still mostly following those greco-roman/jewish lines of afterlife-thought. alas, poor origen. god, toasts, i love you, so much smart.

          (though, there are earlier depictions of “hellish” hell, like the gospel of nicodemus & the 3rd century apocalypse of paul, which i think influenced dante.)

  14. middlemarch +54

    Hahaha OH WOW this certainly doesn’t speak to ME as an anxiety prone post-evangelical in any HIDEOUSLY SPECIFIC WAYS at all!

    I am reading this calmly! Hahahahaha! Yes, no existential fears exposed here!

  15. VioletandIrises +40

    “The cloud does not surround you! The witnesses do not know your name! There is no safety for you, none at all for you and none for your name or the children of your name! The cloud of witnesses will not surround you, and it will not bear you up!”

    This is playing into my deep-seated fear that I will be a murder suspect and I will have no alibi because I was genuinely home alone watching tv.

    1. goonerkate +21

      Just be sure you’re always on the internet and never delete your browser history! (Yes I have given this exact scenario too much thought.)

      1. VioletandIrises +10

        My cable and internet plan was cheaper with the phone included, so I really do need to get around to buying that landline. Your cell phone is useless, but landlines don’t lie.

    2. SarcasticFringehead +16

      So I’m generally pretty uncomfortable with all the new and exciting ways technology companies are coming up with to track all of our activities for our *convenience,* but at least my phone’s GPS can help back me up in the event that no one can corroborate my whereabouts because I was introverting (because as a millenial, I cannot be separated from my devices for even however long it takes to commit a murder).

  16. builtahouse +34

    Is it weird to say that this is somewhat comforting?

    Because those are all the alterations that my brain wants to make to those verses anyway, so reading it like this is a wonderful way of externalizing those fears and seeing “oh wait. That’s not what it says at all. Wow. I totally AM included in the places my brain wants to exclude me.”

  23. PettyVengeanceFetish +7

    “And God saw you, and the man saw you, and the woman saw you, and they saw that you were not good. And they saw that you had dominion over nothing, not even yourself. And they turned away from you, and went into the garden. ”

    This isn’t my deepest darkest fear, not at all, not even close

  24. redheadedwolf +6

    HAHA, so the funny story is that my dad used to read that last one (about the earth swallowing you up, though in the original version it happened to Moses’ own brother who got some big ideas and maybe led an insurrection) to me with explicit warnings that God would not hesitate to do the same to me if I didn’t stop my rebellious ways.

    Fortunately I was a teenager who just thought “fuck. you.” every time, but still. No one’s amazed more than I that I still count myself a Christian.

    1. fromthelandwithlove +5

      That… didn’t happen to Moses’ brother. Moses only has the one brother, and it’s Aaron, and Aaron gets his kids killed but the earth swallowing happens to Korah, who’s Moses’ cousin once removed or some such.

  25. maryoftheassumptions +16

    I believe it’s more commonly taught as “Since we have so great a cloud of witnesses, let us remember that they are all watching you every second. They see you poop. They see that horrible thing you do to yourself in the shower. The Virgin Mary sees you do that, and she’s mortified. Saint Blaise, he saw that one time you think everyone has forgotten about. But he knows. Lucy and Peter have had several talks about what a tool you are.”