30 Bible Verses on Caring for the Environment

From the very beginning of time, God has provided and cared for the environment. Part of God’s first command to Adam and all of mankind was to care for the earth. Later, when God laid out the law for his people the Israelites that provided the way for them to live godly lives, God set into motion multiple laws and regulations that were directly intended to benefit not only the Israelites, but their land and their livestock. In Matthew and Luke, God makes it clear that He cares even for the smallest sparrow and watches over them. These verses establish God’s dominance and care for creation and how God’s people can reflect His character by caring for their environment.

---

What Does the Bible Say About Caring for Creation?

Old Testament

Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:29–31
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 2:15
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Exodus 23:4–5
“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

Exodus 23:10–11
“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

Leviticus 25:4–7
but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food.

Leviticus 25:23
“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.

Deuteronomy 10:14
Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.

Deuteronomy 20:19
“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you?

Deuteronomy 22:6–7
“If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long.

Deuteronomy 25:4
“You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.

Psalm 24:1–2
A Psalm of David.
The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.

Psalm 50:10–11
For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.

Psalm 65:9–13
You visit the earth and water it;
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide their grain,
for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.

New Testament

Matthew 6:26
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Matthew 10:29
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.