Bible Verses About Borders
Bible verses about borders, maintaining your defences and establishing a nation that serves God. These verses highlight the importance of rejecting foreign gods and evil spirits, refusing to submit to the values of an alien culture and the importance that all who live inside a godly nation should reject corruption and contribute. The Bible says we should not oppress the stranger, but the English translations do not provide enough context that identifies the differences between the foreigner who has a right to abide as a resident alien and the person who is travelling through your nation under your protection.
The Hebrew Bible identifies the ‘resident alien’ as a ‘ger.’ As the Israelites were once ‘ger’ in Egypt, they must not oppress the ‘ger’ living amongst them. Exploitation is forbidden. The foreigner, known as ‘nokri,’ who refuses to serve Yahweh, does not receive the same rights as the ‘ger’ or resident alien. The ‘nokri’ was recognised as a person who served other gods and lived by different values than the Israelites. The ‘nokri’ was regarded as a threat to the continuation of the promise to Abraham and Israel. Oppressing the ‘nokri’ is forbidden, but as the ‘nokri’ served other gods, he was just passing through Israel and did not have a right to remain, as he would undermine God’s plan for Israel.
I will establish your borders…do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you
– Exodus 23:31-33
When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel
– Deuteronomy 32:8
Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem
– Nehemiah 2:17
When they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel
– Nehemiah 13:3
From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands
– Acts 17:26
And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you
– Exodus 23:31
No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord
– Deuteronomy 23:3
For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you. He makes peace in your borders
– Psalm 147:13-14
Edomites and Egyptians….the third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord
– Deuteronomy 23:8
If you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell
– Numbers 33:55
You shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman
– Deuteronomy 17:15
He also built Upper Beth-horon and Lower Beth-horon, fortified cities with walls, gates, and bars
– 2 Chronicles 8:5
Do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise
– Deuteronomy 12:30
Thus says the Lord, “Do not learn the way of the Gentiles”
– Jeremiah 10:2-5
We have trespassed against our God and have taken pagan wives from the peoples of the land
– Ezra 10:2
Moses said, “Please let us pass through your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from wells; we will go along the King’s Highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory”
– Numbers 20:17
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover: No foreigner shall eat it”
– Exodus 12:43
He built fortified cities in Judah, for the land had rest. He had no war in those years, for the Lord gave him peace.
– 2 Chronicles 14:6
He cuts down cedars for himself…he makes a god and worships it. He makes it a carved image and falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire…and the rest of it he makes into a god. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
– Isaiah 44:14-17
Moreover, concerning a foreigner, who is not of Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for Your name’s sake (for they will hear of Your great name and Your strong hand and Your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this temple, hear in Heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel
– 1 Kings 8:41-42
Also, you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt
– Exodus 23:9
The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord
– Deuteronomy 23:8
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God”
– Ruth 1:16
And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not
– 1 Timothy 5:13
The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord
– Deuteronomy 23:8
But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever
– 1 Timothy 5:8
From a foreigner you may exact it (payment for debts), but your hand shall release whatever of yours is with your brother
– Deuteronomy 15:3
Paul said, “I am a Jew from Tarsus, in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city”
– Acts 21:39
Reach down your hand from on high; deliver me and rescue me from the mighty waters, from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful
– Psalm 144:7-8
For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger (ger) or a native (ezrach) of the land
– Exodus 12:19
The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God
– Leviticus 19:34
Corrupt men have gone out from among you and enticed the inhabitants of their city, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods” – which you have not known
– Deuteronomy 13:13
The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them
– Deuteronomy 31:16
Mark well who may enter the house and all who go out from the sanctuary. Now say to the rebellious, to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “O house of Israel, let Us have no more of all your abominations. When you brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in My sanctuary to defile it – My house” ’
– Ezekiel 44:5-7
A wicked man accepts a bribe behind the back to pervert the ways of justice
– Proverbs 17:23
You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute
– Exodus 23:3
No layman, however, is to eat the holy gift; a sojourner with the priest or a hired man shall not eat of the holy gift
– Leviticus 22:10
On that day they read aloud from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people, and there was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God
– Nehemiah 13:1
Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God
– Romans 13:1
Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by Him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good
– 1 Peter 2:13-14
When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to
– Acts 16:7
When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, He will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left
– Matthew 25:31-33
Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these”
– Mark 12:30-31
Jesus said, “And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian”
– Luke 4:27
Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord’s holy institution which He loves: he has married the daughter of a foreign god
– Malachi 2:11
Jesus said, “But unless you repent you will all likewise perish”
– Luke 13:3
Jesus said, “Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth”
– Revelation 2:16
“With a large sum I obtained this citizenship.” And Paul said, “But I was born a citizen”
– Acts 22:28
Jesus said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make Our home with him”
– John 14:23
Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son
– 1 John 2:22
And the nations will know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel
– Ezekiel 39:7
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord
– Psalm 33:12
Jesus said, “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place”
– Revelation 2:5
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus
– Galatians 3:28
By Paul Backholer. Find out about Paul’s books here.
