Bible Verses About Forgiveness
The Catholic understanding of forgiveness has two inseparable dimensions: God's forgiveness of human sin, and the human forgiveness of those who wrong us. Jesus links these explicitly in the Lord's Prayer and in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. The Church teaches in the Catechism (§2840) that our willingness to forgive is not a condition we impose on God but rather the soil in which his forgiveness can take root in us.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the ordinary means by which Catholics receive God's forgiveness for grave sins, and the Church's teaching on this sacrament draws heavily from the passages below. The deuterocanonical books — Sirach and Tobit in particular — add a distinctive Catholic voice to this theme, linking forgiveness of enemies to the forgiveness God grants in prayer.
Note: 1 verse on this page is from the deuterocanonical books — books included in the Catholic Bible but absent from most Protestant translations (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1–2 Maccabees).
10 verses — Douay-Rheims Bible (1899 Challoner revision) — Public domain
For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences.Matthew 6:14-15 — Douay-Rheims
Jesus explains the petition for forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer, making human and divine forgiveness mutually conditioning.
And Jesus said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.Luke 23:34 — Douay-Rheims
Jesus prays forgiveness for his executioners from the Cross — the supreme model of forgiving those who wrong us.
Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another: even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also.Colossians 3:13 — Douay-Rheims
Paul grounds the obligation to forgive others in the prior fact of God's forgiveness of us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity.1 John 1:9 — Douay-Rheims
A key text for the Catholic theology of confession: God's faithfulness and justice are the ground of his forgiveness.
Come, and accuse me, saith the Lord: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.Isaiah 1:18 — Douay-Rheims
God's invitation to Israel to enter into honest dialogue about sin, with the promise of radical cleansing.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy. And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity. Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.Psalm 51:1-2 — Douay-Rheims
The Miserere, David's great penitential psalm after his sin with Bathsheba, prayed daily in the Liturgy of the Hours.
Forgive thy neighbour if he hath hurt thee: and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest. Man to man reserveth anger, and doth he seek remedy of God? He hath no mercy on a man like himself, and doth he entreat for his own sins?Sirach 28:2-4Deuterocanonical — Douay-Rheims
A deuterocanonical text (absent from Protestant Bibles) that links forgiveness of neighbor directly to receiving forgiveness from God.
And rising up he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and running to him fell upon his neck, and kissed him. And the son said to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son. And the father said to his servants: Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him.Luke 15:20-22 — Douay-Rheims
The return of the Prodigal Son — Jesus's defining image of God's forgiving love, running to meet the penitent.
Who is a God like to thee, who takest away iniquity, and passest by the sin of the remnant of thy inheritance? He will send his fury in no more, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, and have mercy on us: he will put away our iniquities: and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea.Micah 7:18-19 — Douay-Rheims
Micah's hymn to God's incomparable mercy, casting sins into the depths — the image used by many Church Fathers.
Then came Peter unto him and said: Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith to him: I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times.Matthew 18:21-22 — Douay-Rheims
Jesus removes all numerical limits from the obligation to forgive, pointing to an unlimited mercy modeled on God's own.
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Source
All verse texts from the Douay-Rheims Bible (1899 Challoner revision), public domain. The Douay-Rheims is the traditional Catholic English Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate.