Scripture Stories for Little Saints

Isaiah 35:10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (KJV) Isaiah was a prophet who foresaw that in just a few generations, Babylon would come to destroy Jerusalem and topple the temple. And, in truth, Isaiah felt it was about time. The temple had been op...

Hosea 2:19-20 And I will take you for my wife for ever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD. (NRSV) Once there was a woman named Gomer and a man named Hosea. And while we don’t know how they met, I imagine it went something like this. Hosea was a serious young man who...

Jonah 4:10-11 Then the LORD said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons? (NRSV) The kingdom of Israel was at war with the Assyrian empire — and they were losing. T...

2 Kings 5:3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would present himself to the prophet in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” (NAB) Living where the family of Jacob lived was not easy. There were different countries and people, different armies and empires. And one of the empires was Syria. And one of the Syrian captains was a man named Naaman. And his army attacked the family of Ja...

1 Kings 17:14 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.” (KJV) Solomon was dead and buried, and his son Rehoboam was king. The people came to Rehoboam and said, “Your father made us pay so much in taxes, and he turned some of us into slaves. Please, we don’t have any...

1 Samuel 7:18 Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, ‘Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? Saul, who had brought David into his own home just to be nice, was now trying to kill him. And David was on the run. He ran up mountains and down valleys. He hid his tracks by forging rivers and camping in caves. And when David was hungry, there we...

1 Samuel 17:47 And that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hand. (ESV) The word was out: Samuel had chosen their very first king. And so the people came from all over to find out who it was going to be. And there were no hotels large enough to accommodate a crowd that size, and so they brought their s...

Ruth 1:16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. (KJV) By now, I’ve told you a lot about heroes, leaders, prophets, patriarchs, matriarchs, and people with big, important jobs doing big, important things. But this story is differe...

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him. (KJV) It had been forty years since Moses had led the family of Jacob out of Egypt and into the desert. That’s almost half a lifetime. In forty years, the family of Jacob had traveled all aro...

Numbers 11:17 And I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put that Spirit on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself. (Berean Standard Bible) Camping in the desert is not easy. Sometimes the wind blows sand in your eyes. Other times poisonous snakes bite you. But mostly, it’s jus...

Exodus 19:5-6 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (KJV) The family of Jacob had escaped from Pharoah and were now totally free to do as they pleased. Right? Wrong. The family of Jacob had escaped one king, but they were...

Exodus 3:11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Things were working out pretty well for Moses. While the family of Jacob continued to work as slaves, mixing straw and mud into clay and drying the clay into bricks and stacking the bricks into buildings, Moses was living in a castle as part of the royal family with lots of mone...

Genesis 47:20-21 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. All the Egyptians sold him their fields because the famine was so severe, and soon all the land belonged to Pharaoh. As for the people, he made them all slaves, from one end of Egypt to the other. (NLT) It was not by chance that Joseph had food to sell in Egypt, because the famine happened in Egypt too. The only reason they had f...

Genesis 30:22-24 Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” She named him Joseph, and said, “May the Lord add to me another son.” (NIV) Jacob and Esau were friends again. And that was wonderful. But there was still one other rivalry in the family. Rivalry, a definition: A rivalr...

Genesis 33:3-4 He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. (NIV) Jacob and Esau were twins. And like most twins, they became best friends and invented words and games together. But they also competed and wrestled and fought. And whenever...

Genesis 24:18-19 “Yes, my lord,” she answered, “have a drink.” And she quickly lowered her jug from her shoulder and gave him a drink. When she had given him a drink, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels, too, until they have had enough to drink.” (NLT) Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac grew older. Sarah’s hips grew wider, and her knees became weaker. Abraham’s face wrinkled, and his skin grew thin....

Genesis 19:12 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place: Lot’s family built a wall. And they built a wall because they had moved into a city. The city. The big city. A city called Sodom. And while they liked the fireworks, parks, restaurants, and street performers, there wer...

Genesis 21:6 And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh. (KJV) Hagar had her baby boy, and Sarai watched as the child drew its first breath, then cried, nursed, calmed, and fell asleep. And Hagar also cried for joy and for tiredness, and then she fell asleep too. And while Hagar slept, Sarai took the child, and held him against her chest, and wished it had been hers. She ran her hand over his belly...

Genesis 15:5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (ESV) Abram and Sarai were the family God chose to build his city. But they were just learning what that meant. It didn’t mean they got all the best stuff. Quite the opposite. They’d given all the good stuff away. Abram and...

Genesis 11:4 they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens. (NIV) If you’ve been reading this book, you’ve probably noticed that ever since Adam and Eve left the garden, the world has not seemed like a very safe place. First, there were thorns and predators. Then one person was killed. Then people started growing old and dying. Then wars started, and ton...

Genesis 4:7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? (NIV) Life after Eden was even harder than Eve or Adam could have imagined. Eve got pregnant and gave birth to one boy and then another. And they named them Cain and Abel. And while childbirth was so, so, so hard, it still wasn’t as hard as raising children. Because although children are adorable and snuggly and delightful, they are al...

Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (KJV) In the very beginning, there was Nothing. No trees or flowers or rocks or waterfalls or dirt or grass or land or ocean. There weren’t even stars or lights or days or nights or moons or months or years or anything. And God decided to take this Nothing and make . . . well, everything. God started with an enor...

You do not have to believe in God to acknowledge how much the Bible has done for this world. From a historical perspective, it shows a group of people who were trying to be good. They were crafting laws to foster morality, aid the poor, and safeguard human dignity even in the most extreme situations. From a literary perspective, it is a masterful collection of poetry, personal essays, sermons, and...