Bible Verses About Witchcraft and the Occult.
Many people read horoscopes or visit a psychic out of curiosity or a wish to know the future. Scripture speaks plainly about these practices, and it does so out of care for the people God made.
The Bible forbids seeking guidance from spirits, stars or fortune tellers. It also points to something better: a God who knows the future, speaks through his Word, and has already defeated the powers of darkness.
What God forbids
God told his people to stay away from every practice that seeks hidden knowledge apart from him.
Deuteronomy 18:10-12
There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you.
Leviticus 19:31
“Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 20:6
“If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.
Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul lists sorcery among the works of the flesh, next to sins many people consider ordinary.
Why it falls short
The stars and the spirits cannot give what only God can give.
Isaiah 8:19-20
And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
Isaiah 47:13-14
You are wearied with your many counsels; let them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons make known what shall come upon you. Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, no fire to sit before!
God mocks Babylon's astrologers, who could not save the city from the judgment coming on it.
Jeremiah 10:2
Thus says the LORD: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them,
Turning away from it
The early church showed what repentance from occult practice looks like.
Acts 19:18-19
Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.
Acts 16:16-18
As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.
James 4:7-8
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Christ has won
Believers do not live in fear of dark powers, because Jesus has already defeated them.
Colossians 2:15
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
1 John 4:4
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
1 John 3:8
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
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There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you.
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Scripture quotations are from the ESV(R) Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version(R)), copyright (c) 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.