Bible Verses About Friendship: General references

If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (which neither you nor your fathers have known,

the gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, whether from one end of the earth or the other),

you must not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him.

Instead, you must surely kill him. Your hand must be the first against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people.

A despairing man should have the kindness of his friend, even if he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.

But my brothers are as faithless as wadis, as seasonal streams that overflow,

He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.

My kinsmen have failed me, and my friends have forgotten me.

My guests and maidservants count me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.

I call for my servant, but he does not answer, though I implore him with my own mouth.

My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.

Even little boys scorn me; when I appear, they deride me.

All my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.

My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.

Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?

Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting, but my prayers returned unanswered.

I paced about as for my friend or brother; I was bowed down with grief, like one mourning for his mother.

For it is not an enemy who insults me; that I could endure. It is not a foe who rises against me; from him I could hide.

But it is you, a man like myself, my companion and close friend.

We shared sweet fellowship together; we walked with the crowd into the house of God.

Do not make friends with an angry man, and do not associate with a hot-tempered man,

or you may learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.

Do not be one who gives pledges, who puts up security for debts.

If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you?