Verse collection
Bible verses about friendship
Thirteen verses on friendship, shortest first: what a friend does, what a friend costs, and the friend who called His disciples friends.
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Proverbs has more to say about friends than any other book, and it is unsentimental: a friend is known by staying, sharpening, and telling the truth. The verses below are mostly from there, with David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, and the evening Jesus stopped calling His disciples servants. Every verse below is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible with a line of context. One of these makes a fine thing to write in a card, and a finer thing to know by heart when a friend needs it said.
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Nine words, and the friendship verse most often quoted. Sharpening involves friction; the proverb assumes good friends are not always comfortable.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
At all times is the test. The second half adds that hard times are exactly what a brother, or a friend as close as one, is for.
Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself.
Jonathan, the king's son, binds himself to the shepherd who will take his throne. The Bible's great friendship begins with a promise, not a feeling.
Therefore encourage and build one another up, just as you are already doing.
Encourage and build up: two verbs that describe most of what friendship actually consists of, day to day.
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.
Outdo one another in honoring one another is the only competition the Bible recommends between friends.
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
As I have loved you sets the standard for how friends are to love each other, and Jesus says it hours before showing what that meant.
The wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
A friend's hard word is called faithful. The proverb trusts a friend who will wound you over a flatterer who will not.
Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Carrying a burden is not solving it; it is sharing the weight. Paul calls this the law of Christ, which is a high name for a simple act.
Oil and incense bring joy to the heart, and the counsel of a friend is sweetness to the soul.
The counsel of a friend is compared to perfume: not necessary, but the thing that makes a day sweet. Good advice from someone who loves you is rare.
A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.
Many companions and one friend are contrasted on purpose. The friend who stays closer than a brother is the one the whole page is about.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. For if one falls down, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to help him up!
Two are better than one, with the reason given: when one falls. The passage is realistic about falling and about being alone when it happens.
No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you.
The night before His death, Jesus changes the word He uses for His disciples from servants to friends, and gives the reason: He has held nothing back from them.
But Ruth replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.
Ruth to Naomi, her mother-in-law, on the road out of Moab. Read at weddings, but spoken between two widows; the most complete promise of loyalty in the Bible.
Word counts use this site's counting rule in the Berean Standard Bible. Each reference links to the verse in its chapter, because a verse understood in context lands better than a verse alone.
A verse for a friend
The shortest verses here are the ones to learn: Proverbs 27:17 or 17:17 can be said to a friend from memory, which lands differently from reading it off a screen. The five-step method takes a few minutes a day: hear the verse aloud, say it while more and more words hide themselves, and finish by reciting it from just the reference.
Questions
What does the Bible say about friendship?
Mostly through Proverbs, and plainly. A friend loves at all times (Proverbs 17:17); a true friend stays closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24); friends sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17); and a friend's honest wound is more faithful than an enemy's kiss (Proverbs 27:6). The New Testament adds the standard: love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12), and carry one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2).
Who were the great friends in the Bible?
David and Jonathan, whose friendship began with a covenant (1 Samuel 18:3) and held even though Jonathan was the heir David would replace. Ruth and Naomi, a widow and her widowed mother-in-law, whose promise in Ruth 1:16, wherever you go, I will go, is the Bible's fullest pledge of loyalty. And Jesus and His disciples, whom He called friends rather than servants on the night before His death (John 15:15).
Which friendship verse should I memorize?
Proverbs 27:17 is nine words: As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Proverbs 17:17 is thirteen: A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Either is learned in a few days with a few minutes of practice, and either is worth having ready for a friend's hard week.
Half remember a different verse?
The words don't need to match exactly, just type what you remember.