Bible verses about temptation
One Greek word in the New Testament covers both trial and temptation, and a good deal of confusion follows from that. These passages are set out with a sentence on each, including the one that says plainly where temptation does not come from.
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. — James 1:14 · WEB
One Greek word covers both trial and temptation, and the letter uses the ambiguity to close off an excuse before it can be made.
No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. — 1 Corinthians 10:13 · WEB
Four wilderness failures are named as warnings written down for later readers, and the passage ends with the most practical promise in the letter.
For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. — Hebrews 4:15 · WEB
Three verses turn the argument from exposure to access, and the qualification offered is that he knows how it feels.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. — Matthew 4:1 · WEB
Where the earliest account gives two verses, Matthew gives the exchange — three appeals, three answers from one book, and a Son who will not prove what he has just been told.
When the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him until another time. — Luke 4:13 · WEB
The three temptations, with this account's own order — and a closing line that says the tempter is coming back.
She caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” He left his garment in her hand, and ran outside. — Genesis 39:12 · WEB
Doing right costs him everything a second time, and a second garment is used as evidence against him.
“I made a covenant with my eyes; how then should I look lustfully at a young woman? — Job 31:1 · WEB
Job's oath of clearance reaches inward to desire and downward to his servants, and rests on the fact that his slaves were made by the same hand.
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s. — 1 John 2:16 · WEB
The world here is a system of wanting rather than the created order, and the argument against loving it is that it is already going.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. — Galatians 5:16 · WEB
The command is a direction of travel rather than a program, and the conflict described is real enough that neither side simply wins.
Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. — James 4:7 · WEB
A run of imperatives arrives, and each of the first three carries a promise while the last names the disease the letter has been treating throughout.
Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. — 1 Peter 5:8 · WEB
The hostility the letter has been describing is finally given a source behind the neighbors, and the response asked for is standing rather than fighting.
Watch and pray, that you don’t enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” — Matthew 26:41 · WEB
He asks for the cup to pass, three times, and each time ends the prayer the same way.
For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. — Romans 6:14 · WEB
The commands begin — a throne denied, weapons reassigned — and the promise under them locates freedom in a change of regime.
then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, — 2 Peter 2:9 · WEB
The same three precedents that prove judgment also prove rescue — and the man they rescue is not an obvious hero.
Don’t enter into the path of the wicked. Don’t walk in the way of evil men. — Proverbs 4:14 · WEB
A father passes on what his own father told him, and the chapter ends by working outward from the heart through the mouth, eyes and feet.
I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. — Psalm 119:11 · WEB