Mother’s Day Bible Verses

Here are 28 Bible passages for Mother’s Day, grouped by the job you need them to do: a short line for a slide or a card, a longer reading for the front of the service, something for a mother who is worn out, and something for the people this Sunday is hard for. Every verse is quoted in full from the Berean Standard Bible with its reference, so you can check the words against the reference before they go on a screen.

Mother’s Day in the United States falls on the second Sunday in May. Congress set that date in 1914, six years after Anna Jarvis held the first observance at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, on May 10, 1908, in honor of her own mother (Library of Congress). The next four fall on:

• Sunday, May 9, 2027
• Sunday, May 14, 2028
• Sunday, May 13, 2029
• Sunday, May 12, 2030

Short verses for a slide, a card or a bulletin cover

Each of these fits on one screen and reads cleanly out loud without a run-up.

Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the days to come.

Proverbs 31:25

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

Proverbs 31:26

Children are indeed a heritage from the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.

Psalm 127:3

As a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you, and you will be consoled over Jerusalem.”

Isaiah 66:13

May your father and mother be glad, and may she who gave you birth rejoice!

Proverbs 23:25

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

3 John 1:4

Longer readings for the front of the service

The first is the commandment most Mother’s Day services are built on. The two after it are the words of mothers themselves, which is a different thing from a verse about mothers and usually lands better read aloud.

Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

Exodus 20:12

At that time Hannah prayed: “My heart rejoices in the LORD; my horn is exalted in the LORD. My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies, for I rejoice in Your salvation. There is no one holy like the LORD. Indeed, there is no one besides You! And there is no Rock like our God.

1 Samuel 2:1-2

Then Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For He has looked with favor on the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is His name.

Luke 1:46-49

Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband praises her as well: “Many daughters have done noble things, but you surpass them all!” Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her at the gates.

Proverbs 31:28-31

For a mother who is worn out

These are for the woman who came to church tired and does not want to be told she is a hero.

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads the nursing ewes.

Isaiah 40:11

Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!

Lamentations 3:22-23

Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2

For the part of the room this Sunday is hard for

A service built only on celebration will land badly on some of the people sitting in it, and that is not a failure of planning. It is what happens when one Sunday a year is built around a relationship that, for some people present, has gone wrong or gone missing.

Amy Young wrote an open letter to pastors about this in 2012. She listed who is in the room: women who gave birth this year, women who lost a pregnancy or an adoption, women walking through infertility, women whose own mothers have died, women who were hurt by their mothers, women who long to be married and mothering. Her line is the one to keep in front of you while you plan:

I believe we can honor mothers without alienating others.

Amy Young, An open letter to pastors, 2012

Two things cost a service almost nothing. Say once, early and in a single sentence, that you know this day is not simple for everyone. Then pick one reading from below. You do not have to build the whole service around it, and naming it once is usually enough.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.

Romans 12:15

If her mother has died

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

If she has lost a child

Two words, and it is often the only line that does not ask her for anything.

Jesus wept.

John 11:35

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

If she wanted children and does not have them

Two verses turn up on almost every list for this, and both need care. Psalm 113:9 says God settles the barren woman as a joyful mother of children, and Isaiah 54:1 tells the barren woman to shout for joy because her children will be many. Read to a woman for whom that will not happen, they sound like a promise God has not kept. These two carry the comfort without the debt.

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you!

Isaiah 49:15

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

If her mother was the one who hurt her

This one is worth having ready even if you never read it from the front. It is the verse to hand someone quietly afterwards.

Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.

Psalm 27:10

Mothers named in the Bible, for a children’s message or a lesson

Five women, one verse each, in the order a child can follow.

Eve, the first mother named in scripture:

And Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all the living.

Genesis 3:20

The mother of Moses, who is named as Jochebed in Exodus 6:20, hired back to nurse her own son:

Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him.

Exodus 2:9

Hannah, handing over the child she had asked for:

I prayed for this boy, and since the LORD has granted me what I asked of Him,

1 Samuel 1:27

Mary, still turning it over years later:

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Luke 2:19

Lois and Eunice, a grandmother and a mother named together as where a faith came from:

I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am convinced is in you as well.

2 Timothy 1:5

One to leave out, or to use correctly. Ruth 1:16 appears on Mother’s Day lists often, and it is usually printed as a mother speaking to her child. It is the opposite. Ruth is a widowed daughter-in-law, and she is speaking to Naomi, her husband’s mother:

But Ruth replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

Ruth 1:16

As a verse about a daughter-in-law choosing a mother-in-law it is remarkable, and on a Sunday when some people in the room are not related by blood to the family that raised them, it is stronger used that way than mislabeled.

Before you build the service on Proverbs 31

Proverbs 31 is the default Mother’s Day text, and the part that gets read is verses 10 to 31. Those 22 verses are an alphabetical acrostic: in Hebrew, each verse begins with the next of the 22 letters of the alphabet, which is why the passage runs exactly that long (United Bible Societies, Translation Insights and Practices).

Two things follow, and both are worth knowing before you preach it. The poem names its own subject in its first line, and the subject is a wife:

A wife of noble character, who can find? She is far more precious than rubies.

Proverbs 31:10

Across all 22 verses the word mother does not appear once. Children appear in one verse, near the end, and they appear as speakers rather than as the point:

Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband praises her as well:

Proverbs 31:28

The mother in Proverbs 31 is in verse 1, in the nine verses at the top of the chapter that Mother’s Day services skip. The chapter opens with a king writing down what his own mother taught him:

These are the words of King Lemuel—the burden that his mother taught him:

Proverbs 31:1

What she taught him runs through verse 9: stay sober enough to judge fairly, and then use your position for people who have none. It finishes here:

Open your mouth for those with no voice, for the cause of all the dispossessed. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the poor and needy.

Proverbs 31:8-9

So if you want Proverbs 31 on Mother’s Day and you want it to be about a mother, the first nine verses are the ones with a mother in them. The famous twenty-two are about a wife.

Reading Proverbs 31:10-31 on Mother’s Day is a good and ordinary thing to do, and most services that do it land well. It is worth knowing what the poem is, though. A text written to run from the first letter of the alphabet to the last is a portrait of a whole life at once, and no woman lives a whole life in a week. Read straight down as a list it can start to sound like a scorecard, which is not what the passage does with itself. It does not end with a demand. It ends with an instruction to the people listening:

Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her at the gates.

Proverbs 31:31

One translation, and why

Every verse above is the Berean Standard Bible. The Berean text was placed in the public domain on April 30, 2023, so a church can print it in a bulletin, put it on a screen or read it from the front with no permission line, no copyright notice and no royalty (Berean Bible licensing).

There is a practical reason to keep one translation across a single service as well. If three verses in one reading come from three different translations, the wording changes underneath the reader partway through, and a familiar line comes out unfamiliar.