What the Bible
Says About Anxiety

“Be anxious about nothing…”

Every Bible site gives you the same English words. Here you also see the actual Hebrew and Greek behind them — and in the New Testament, the word for “anxiety” literally means a mind pulled into pieces.

When you search for what the Bible says about anxiety, you are usually not looking for a definition. You are looking for somewhere to put the weight. The Scriptures meet that exactly — not with a command to try harder, but with a place to set it down.

And there is something most translations quietly lose. In the New Testament, “anxiety” is almost always one Greek word — merimnaō — and its root picture is a mind divided, drawn in several directions at once, torn into fragments. Jesus uses it. Paul uses it. Peter uses it. Once you see the word, the cure the Bible offers stops sounding like a slogan and starts sounding like a rescue.

The anchor passage

Philippians 4:6–7

Philippians 4:6–7 KJ3

“Be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and by petition with thanksgivings, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

KJ3 Literal Translation

μεριμνᾶτεmerimnate · from merimnaō
“Be anxious”Greek G3309

To be drawn in different directions — a mind pulled into pieces. Paul’s grammar is a present command: literally, stop being fragmented. The opposite of anxiety here is not calm feelings; it is a gathered, single-minded heart.

εἰρήνηeirēnē
“Peace”Greek G1515

Not merely the absence of trouble — wholeness, things set back together. The very thing a divided mind has lost.

φρουρήσειphourēsei · from phroureō
“Will guard”Greek G5432

A military word — to mount guard like a garrison, to post sentries at the gate. God’s peace does not just visit the anxious heart; it stands watch over it.

Read the whole chapter in the Bible Reader

Light for Your Path

Watch: Breaking Free from Anxiety

Breaking Free from Anxiety — Light for Your Path devotional

Light for Your Path · Devotional One

Breaking Free from Anxiety

Philippians 4:6–7 · 10:03 · Los Jilgueros Preserve, Fallbrook

Discovering peace through prayer, gratitude, and anchoring trust in God’s unchanging promises — the very first Light for Your Path devotional, built on the anchor verse above.

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Scripture set to music

A song to rest in

The God of Peace · Philippians 4

The God of Peace

Philippians 4:1–23 · KJ3 Literal Translation, sung

Paul’s whole letter to the Philippians set to music — from “rejoice always,” through “be anxious about nothing” and the peace that guards the heart, to “I can do all things in Christ.” The anchor verse, sung.

The God of Peace
0:000:00
So then, my brothers, beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand firm in the Lord, beloved ones. I entreat Euodias, and I entreat Syntyche, to mind the same thing in the Lord. And I also ask you, true yoke-fellow, together help with them, women who struggled along with me and with Clement in the gospel, and the rest, fellow-workers with me, whose names are in the Book of Life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, Rejoice! Let your kind spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and by petition with thanksgivings, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. For the rest, brothers, as many things as are true, as many as are honorable, as many as are right, as many as are pure, as many as are pleasing, as many as are of good report, if of any virtue, and if of any praise, meditate on these things. And what things you learned and received and heard and saw in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now once again you revived your thinking on my behalf, on which you also were thinking, but lacked opportunity. Not that I speak as to need, for I have learned to be content in whatever state I am. And I know to be humbled, and I know to abound; in everything, and in all things, I am taught both to be full and to hunger, both to abound, and to be in need. I can do all things in Christ, the One strengthening me.
More Scripture music

More to hold onto

The verses, word for word

Isaiah 41:10 KJ3

“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not gaze about, for I am your God; I will make you strong; yea, I will help you; yea, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness.”

KJ3 Literal Translation

אַל תִּירָאal·tira
“Do not fear”Hebrew H408 + H3372

The most repeated command in Scripture — spoken here as God draws near, not from a distance.

תִּשְׁתָּעtishta
“Do not gaze about”Hebrew H8159

To look around anxiously, glancing side to side in dismay. The literal cure: stop scanning the horizon for threats — look at the One beside you.

Open Isaiah 41

Matthew 6:25, 27, 34 KJ3

“…Do not be anxious for your soul… who of you by being anxious is able to add one cubit onto his stature? … Therefore do not be anxious into the morrow. For the morrow will be anxious of itself.”

KJ3 Literal Translation

μεριμνάωmerimnaō
“Be anxious”Greek G3309

The same word Paul uses in Philippians. Jesus says worry cannot add a single inch — the divided mind is not only painful, it is powerless. Today has enough; do not let tomorrow tear you apart in advance.

Open Matthew 6

1 Peter 5:6–7 KJ3

“Therefore, be humbled under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in time; casting all your anxiety onto Him, because it matters to Him concerning you.”

KJ3 Literal Translation

μέριμναmerimna
“Anxiety”Greek G3308

The noun form of the same root — the divided care itself.

ἐπιρίπτωepirriptō
“Casting”Greek

To throw the whole weight onto something — the word for flinging a cloak over an animal’s back. Not setting it down gently to pick up again, but hurling it off because Someone stronger will carry it.

Open 1 Peter 5

Psalm 55:22 KJ3

“Cast on Jehovah that given to you, and He will keep you; He will not give shaking to the righteous ones forever.”

KJ3 Literal Translation — the verse Peter quotes

Open Psalm 55

Psalm 94:19 KJ3

“In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Your comforts delight my soul.”

KJ3 Literal Translation

Open Psalm 94

John 14:27 KJ3

“Peace I leave to you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives I give to you. Let not your heart be agitated, nor let it be fearful.”

KJ3 Literal Translation

Open John 14

Psalm 23:4 KJ3

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

KJ3 Literal Translation

Open Psalm 23

What the words are telling you

Put the original words side by side and a single picture appears. Anxiety, in the Bible, is a mind pulled into pieces — merimnaō. That is the diagnosis Jesus, Paul, and Peter all reach for.

And the cure is just as concrete. You do not calm the fragments one by one. You cast them — throw the whole weight — onto God (1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 55:22). And then His peace, His wholeness, mounts guard like a garrison over your heart and mind (Philippians 4:7).

A scattered mind, gathered into one place and then guarded. That is what the Bible says about anxiety — and it is the same message in Hebrew and in Greek, from Isaiah to the upper room.

Keep reading

Every verse on this page opens into the full chapter — with the Hebrew and Greek under every word — in the Bible Reader.

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