Bible Verses About Witchcraft
Introduction
The Hebrew word kashaph, translated sorcerer or witch, describes in the Old Testament the person who practices the manipulation of hidden powers to produce desired outcomes, bypassing the ordinary channels of human action and divine providence in favor of techniques claimed to access supernatural forces. The word appears in Exodus 22:18, in the lists of prohibited practices in Deuteronomy 18, and in the indictments of the prophets against Israel's syncretism with the religious practices of surrounding nations. The prohibition against kashaph is not a prohibition against the supernatural as such but against the specific attempt to access and manipulate supernatural power through means other than the living God.
The Greek word pharmakeia, from which the English word pharmacy derives, appears in the New Testament in Galatians 5:20 and Revelation 18:23 as a term for sorcery or witchcraft. The connection to drugs and potions is present in the word's etymology, reflecting the ancient association between the use of substances and the practice of magic. Paul places pharmakeia in his list of the works of the flesh alongside idolatry, which locates the practice of sorcery within the broader category of the substitution of other powers for the living God. The Revelation passages describe it as one of the deceiving practices that will characterize the end times.
What Scripture refuses to do is treat the practices it prohibits as either nonexistent or harmless. The consistent biblical position is that there are genuine spiritual forces at work in the world beyond the material, that the manipulation of those forces through the practices the Old Testament prohibits is real enough to be dangerous, and that the God of Israel alone has the right to the allegiance that such practices seek to direct elsewhere. The prohibitions are serious precisely because what is being prohibited is treated as genuinely powerful, genuinely seductive, and genuinely incompatible with the exclusive loyalty that the living God requires.
The Old Testament Prohibitions
Exodus 22:18 You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live.
"You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live" is one of the starkest prohibitions in the Mosaic law, reflecting the severity with which the Old Testament treats the practice of sorcery within the covenant community. The harshness of the penalty is calibrated to the seriousness of the offense in its ancient context: the practice of sorcery represented the introduction of a competing spiritual power into a community whose entire existence was defined by exclusive covenant with the living God. The death penalty was the expression of the incompatibility between the two, not a guide for Christian civil law.
Deuteronomy 18:10-12 No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving out those nations before you.
"Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord" places the practices listed within a comprehensive category of what God finds incompatible with the covenant life. The list encompasses several distinct practices that share a common structure: the attempt to access hidden knowledge or power through means other than the living God. The nations being driven out of Canaan practiced these things, and the warning to Israel is that the adoption of the same practices would produce the same consequence.
Leviticus 20:27 A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned to death, their blood is upon them.
"A medium or a wizard shall be put to death" continues the pattern of severe prohibition that runs through the Mosaic law on this subject. The medium who claims to communicate with the dead and the wizard who claims to manipulate hidden powers are both treated as threats to the community's covenant integrity that require the most decisive response available. The penalty reflects the ancient theocratic context of Israel's law rather than a template for contemporary civil legislation.
Saul and the Medium of Endor
1 Samuel 28:7 Then Saul said to his servants, "Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, so that I may go to her and inquire of her." His servants said to him, "There is a medium at Endor."
"Seek out for me a woman who is a medium" is Saul's request at the lowest point of his reign, after God has stopped answering him through dreams, priests, or prophets. The irony is heavy: the king who had expelled mediums and wizards from the land now secretly seeks one out, because the God he has rejected has fallen silent. The recourse to the medium is both the symptom and the deepening of the spiritual disorder that has characterized Saul's final years.
1 Samuel 28:15 Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" Saul answered, "I am in great distress, for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams; so I have summoned you to tell me what I should do."
"God has turned away from me and answers me no more" is Saul's own diagnosis of his condition, spoken to what appears in the text as the shade of Samuel. The account is one of the most contested in the Old Testament, with interpreters disagreeing about whether the medium actually conjured Samuel or a demonic impersonator. What is not contested is the narrative purpose: the episode demonstrates the futility and the spiritual disaster of seeking guidance through the means God has prohibited rather than through the means he has appointed.
The Prophetic Indictment
Isaiah 8:19-20 Now if people say to you, "Consult the ghosts and the familiar spirits that chirp and mutter; should not a people consult their gods, the dead on behalf of the living?" To the teaching and to the testimony! Surely those who speak like this will have no dawn.
"To the teaching and to the testimony!" is Isaiah's counter to the counsel to consult the dead and the familiar spirits. The question "should not a people consult their gods?" sounds reasonable on its surface: why not access all available sources of guidance? Isaiah's answer is that the teaching and the testimony of God are the only reliable source, and that the person who turns to the chirping and muttering of familiar spirits has turned away from the only voice that can speak with authority about what is real.
Micah 5:12 And I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more soothsayers.
"I will cut off sorceries from your hand" is God's promise of purification to a people who have been practicing what he has prohibited. The cutting off of sorcery is presented as an act of divine mercy rather than merely divine judgment: the removal of what is destroying the people from within is the necessary precondition for the restoration that God intends. The sorcery that has become embedded in the community's life will be removed not by the community's own reform but by God's direct action.
Nahum 3:4 Because of the countless whorings of the prostitute, graceful and deadly in sorceries, who enslaves nations through her whorings, and peoples through her sorceries.
"Enslaves nations through her sorceries" is Nahum's description of Nineveh, whose influence over surrounding peoples is described in terms of both sexual allure and the practice of sorcery. The connection between the two is significant: sorcery in the prophetic imagination is a seductive power, one that promises what it cannot deliver and that binds its practitioners and its victims in a way that is difficult to break. The enslavement that results is not merely metaphorical.
The New Testament on Sorcery
Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
"Sorcery" appears in Paul's list of the works of the flesh alongside idolatry, which is the theologically precise location for it: the practice of sorcery is a form of the worship of what is not God, the direction of the soul's deepest allegiance toward powers that are not the living God. The warning that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom is not a statement about a single act but about the orientation of a life that has chosen what is incompatible with the kingdom.
Acts 8:9-11 Now a certain man named Simon had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. All of them, from the least to the greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, "This man is the power of God that is called Great." And they listened eagerly to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.
"For a long time he had amazed them with his magic" is Luke's description of the hold that Simon's practice had on the community before the gospel arrived. The amazement he produced is the mechanism by which sorcery operates: it produces a dependence on the practitioner that is difficult to break because the people have no alternative framework for explaining what they have witnessed. The gospel's arrival in Samaria breaks the hold because it offers something more powerful and more real.
Acts 13:8-10 But the magician Elymas, for that is the translation of his name, opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, "You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy! Will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?"
"You enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy" is Paul's assessment of the magician who is actively opposing the gospel's advance. The characterization of Elymas as a son of the devil and an enemy of all righteousness places his practice of magic within the larger spiritual conflict between the kingdom of God and the forces that oppose it. The sorcerer is not a neutral practitioner of an alternative spiritual tradition. He is an active agent of opposition to what God is doing.
Revelation's Treatment of Sorcery
Revelation 18:23 And the light of a lamp will shine in you no more; and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more; for your merchants were the magnates of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.
"All nations were deceived by your sorcery" is the indictment of Babylon in Revelation's vision, where sorcery is the mechanism of the great deception that has captured the nations. The deception is global, comprehensive, and successful enough that all the nations have been drawn into it, which reflects the New Testament's consistent characterization of sorcery as a deceiving power that presents itself as something other than what it is.
Revelation 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
"The sorcerers" appear in John's list of those whose place is in the lake of fire, placed alongside murderers, fornicators, and idolaters. The eschatological severity of this placement is consistent with the Old Testament's treatment of sorcery as incompatible with covenant loyalty: what is incompatible with life in the covenant community is ultimately incompatible with life in the new creation.
The Power of God Over All Powers
Acts 8:13 Even Simon himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place.
"Even Simon himself believed" is the testimony that the power of the gospel extends to those who have been practicing sorcery. The man who had amazed Samaria with his magic is himself amazed by what he sees in Philip's ministry, and his amazement produces faith. The conversion of Simon is a demonstration of what Paul will later articulate: that the gospel is the power of God, and that the power of God is greater than any alternative power that sorcery claims to access.
Colossians 1:16 For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things have been created through him and for him.
"Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things have been created through him and for him" is the cosmic claim that places every spiritual power, including those that sorcery claims to access, within the scope of Christ's creative and governing authority. The powers that are sought through sorcery are not independent powers outside God's governance. They are created powers that exist within a universe whose Lord is Christ, which means the attempt to access them apart from him is the attempt to use what belongs to him without his authority.
A Simple Way to Pray
Lord, you alone are the source of genuine power, genuine knowledge, and genuine protection. Where I have been drawn to practices or beliefs that seek power or knowledge through means other than you, forgive me and redirect me. Guard me against the deception that presents alternative spiritual powers as neutral or beneficial, and give me the discernment to recognize what is incompatible with the exclusive loyalty you ask of me. Let my trust in you be complete enough that I am not tempted to look elsewhere for what only you can give. And where others around me are bound by practices that have enslaved them, let the gospel's power be demonstrated in their liberation. Amen.
Frequently Asked Questions
What practices does the Bible specifically prohibit under the category of witchcraft? Deuteronomy 18:10-12 provides the most comprehensive list: divination, soothsaying, augury, sorcery, casting spells, consulting ghosts or spirits, and seeking oracles from the dead. The common thread running through all of them is the attempt to access hidden knowledge or power through means other than the living God. Modern practices that fall within these categories would include Ouija boards, séances, astrology used for guidance, certain forms of psychic consultation, and rituals that claim to manipulate spiritual powers.
Is all reference to the supernatural or spiritual world witchcraft? No. The Bible is full of accounts of genuine supernatural activity: angelic appearances, prophetic visions, miracles, spiritual gifts, and the direct activity of the Holy Spirit. What distinguishes these from witchcraft is their source and their authorization. The supernatural activity that Scripture commends is initiated by God and submitted to his purposes. The practices Scripture prohibits are attempts to access supernatural power through channels other than God, for purposes determined by the human practitioner rather than submitted to divine authority.
How should Christians engage with popular culture that depicts witchcraft positively? Scripture consistently calls believers to discernment about what they consume and how it shapes their imagination and their desires. The consumption of fictional content that depicts witchcraft is a matter of Christian conscience rather than a clear biblical command, and Christians disagree on where the lines should be drawn. The more important question is whether the consumption of such content is producing in the believer a diminished sense of the incompatibility of these practices with covenant loyalty, or an increased curiosity about the practices themselves. The answer to that question, honestly examined, tends to guide the decision.
Can a Christian be harmed by someone else's practice of witchcraft? The New Testament is clear that Christ's authority exceeds every other spiritual power (Colossians 1:16, Ephesians 1:20-21). The consistent biblical testimony is that those who belong to God are held by a power greater than any that might be directed against them (1 John 4:4). This does not mean that spiritual attack is impossible or that Christians are immune to spiritual oppression. It means that the resources available to the believer in Christ are greater than any power that might be arrayed against them, and that the appropriate response to perceived spiritual attack is not counter-magic but prayer, the armor of God, and the authority of Christ.
What should I do if I have been involved in witchcraft in the past? Acts 19:18-19 provides the New Testament model: those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them, making a decisive break with the practices they had been involved in. The pattern involves honest confession, genuine repentance, the removal of objects and materials connected to the practice, and the sustained engagement with the community of faith and the word of God that rebuilds the orientation that the practice had displaced. The grace of God in Christ is sufficient for every form of past involvement, and the community of faith is the context in which the healing and the reorientation can happen.
