24 Bible verses about prayer for when you do not know what to say
Written by Raphael Navarro Schmitt · Reviewed by Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt ·
Short answer
To pray, in the Bible, is to talk to God — not to recite a formula. Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 right after saying, in 6:8, that the Father already knows what you need. Luke 18:1 adds the demand that recurs most: keep asking and do not give up.
This page is about what Scripture teaches on praying. It is not about the forms of prayer each Christian tradition keeps, which are many and differ from one another — the site does not enter that argument, and the verses below were not picked to defend any side of it.
What stands out when you read the whole set is how little the Bible says about technique and how much it says about persistence. There are long prayers and one-line prayers; prayers on the knees, standing, before dawn, from inside a fish. The tax collector in Luke 18 says one sentence looking at the ground and goes home justified. There is no prize format.
The list begins with what Jesus taught, moves through the concrete habits of people who prayed, and ends with what to do when prayer seems neither to come out nor to be answered — which is probably what brought you here.
All 24 verses, one by one
And it happened that, while he was in a certain place praying, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
The request comes from the disciples, and it comes after watching Jesus pray. Worth noticing that people who had prayed in a synagogue since childhood decided they needed to learn again.
Read the chapter9Therefore, you shall pray in this way: Our Father, who is in heaven: May your name be kept holy.
10May your kingdom come. May your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth.
11Give us this day our life-sustaining bread.
12And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation. But free us from evil. Amen.
The only prayer Jesus taught word for word. Notice the order: his name, his kingdom and his will come before the bread, the forgiveness and the rescue.
Read the chapterTherefore, do not choose to imitate them. For your Father knows what your needs may be, even before you ask him.
If God already knows, why pray? The verse does not answer — and that is precisely how it takes the job of informing God out of prayer. What is left is what prayer actually is: being with him.
Read the chapterBut you, when you pray, enter into your room, and having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you.
A room, a shut door, nobody watching. It is the strongest defence of private prayer there is, and it comes immediately before Jesus teaches a prayer in the plural — the two coexist.
Read the chapterAll peoples gathered together: trust in him. Pour out your hearts in his sight. God is our helper for eternity.
The verb is pour out, not present. There is no suggestion of organising the material before bringing it: you bring it as it is.
Read the chapterAnd the tax collector, standing at a distance, was not willing to even lift up his eyes to heaven. But he struck his chest, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’
One line, from a distance, without lifting his eyes. It is the shortest prayer Jesus praises, and it comes straight after the longest and best-constructed one, which he turns down.
Read the chapterFor to you, I will pray. In the morning, Lord, you will hear my voice.
The forgotten half is the second: bringing the request and then waiting. Praying and running off is not what the verse describes.
Read the chapterAnd rising up very early, departing, he went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.
Three practical facts in one sentence: very early, out of the way, alone. This is what Jesus did on the morning after the busiest day he had had so far.
Read the chapterNow when Daniel learned of this, namely, that the law had been established, he entered his house, and, opening the windows in his upper room towards Jerusalem, he knelt down three times a day, and he adored and gave thanks before his God, as he had been accustomed to do previously.
The decisive phrase is at the end: as he had been accustomed to do previously. He neither increased nor hid his praying when it became a crime — he simply kept the habit.
Read the chapterPray without ceasing.
Three words. If it were an order to stay on your knees all day it would be impossible — what it describes is a state of open conversation, not a schedule.
Read the chapterThrough every kind of prayer and supplication, pray at all times in spirit, and so be vigilant with every kind of earnest supplication, for all the saints,
It comes at the end of the armour of God and is not listed as a piece of it. Prayer appears as what you do while wearing everything that came before.
Read the chapterNow he also told them a parable, that we should continually pray and not cease,
It is rare for the text to state in advance what a parable is for. Here it does: so as not to give up. The target is not getting the request granted, it is going on asking.
Read the chapter9And so I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you.
10For everyone who asks, receives. And whoever seeks, finds. And whoever knocks, it shall be opened to him.
Three verbs of increasing intensity: ask, seek, knock. The scale suggests that not every answer arrives at the first level.
Read the chapterCry out to me and I will heed you. And I will announce to you great things, things that are certain, though you do not know them.
Said to a prophet who was shut up in the courtyard of the guard. The invitation to cry out does not come with a promise of release — it comes with a promise of knowing things he did not know.
Read the chapterAnd this shall be: before they call out, I will perceive; while they are still speaking, I will hear.
The answer arriving before the request is finished. It is the exact counterweight to the feeling of talking to the ceiling.
Read the chapter14And this is the confidence which we have toward God: that no matter what we shall request, in accord with his will, he hears us.
15And we know that he hears us, no matter what we request; so we know that we can obtain the things that we request of him.
The condition sits in the middle of the sentence and usually gets skipped: in accord with his will. Without it, the verse turns into a mail-order promise.
Read the chapterYou ask and you do not receive, because you ask badly, so that you may use it toward your own desires.
The only text here that says why a request goes unanswered, and the reason is uncomfortable: the motive behind the asking. Worth reading before concluding that God does not listen.
Read the chaptersaying: “Father, if you are willing, take this chalice away from me. Yet truly, let not my will, but yours, be done.”
Jesus asks for the cup to be taken away and the request is not granted. Anyone teaching that a prayer made in faith always gets what it asks for has to account for this verse.
Read the chapterAnd similarly, the Spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself asks on our behalf with ineffable sighing.
The text assumes we do not know how to pray as we ought — not as an exception, but as the rule. It is the verse for days when no words come out at all.
Read the chapterThe Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.
The condition is not merit, it is truthfulness. Near to all who call upon him, says the verse, with no filter for people who are up to date with God.
Read the chapterLet my prayer be guided like incense in your sight: the lifting up of my hands, like the evening sacrifice.
Prayer described as incense rising and as the evening sacrifice. The image is of something that goes up slowly and fills the room — not of a message being sent.
Read the chapterTherefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be saved. For the unremitting prayer of a just person prevails over many things.
Confession and prayer arrive stuck together, and the traditions organise the first in different ways. What the verse asks for without any ambiguity is the second: pray for one another.
Read the chapter19Again I say to you, that if two of those among you have agreed on earth, about anything whatsoever that they have requested, it shall be done for them by my Father, who is in heaven.
20For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I, in their midst.”
The number is deliberately low: two or three. The promise depends on neither a crowd nor a particular place.
Read the chapterand if my people, over whom my name has been invoked, being converted, will have petitioned me and sought my face, and will have done penance for their wicked ways, then I will heed them from heaven, and I will forgive their sins, and I will heal their land.
It closes the list because it is the only prayer here on the scale of a country. Note the order of the verbs: being converted comes before the petition, and the penance before the answer.
Read the chapter
Frequently asked questions
How should I pray, according to the Bible?
With no compulsory formula. Matthew 6:9-13 gives the prayer Jesus taught and works as a model of order: God first, then the needs. Psalm 61:9 authorises pouring out what you feel without tidying it first, and Luke 18:13 shows that one sincere sentence is enough.
Is there a right time to pray?
The Bible records many hours without electing one. Psalm 5:4 speaks of the morning, Mark 1:35 shows Jesus praying before dawn, Daniel 6:10 describes three times a day, and 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says pray without ceasing. What recurs is the regularity, not the clock.
Why does it seem like God does not answer my prayers?
Scripture offers more than one reason and does not resolve them all. 1 John 5:14 conditions the answer on God’s will, James 4:3 points at the motive behind the request, and Luke 22:42 shows Jesus himself having a request refused. Luke 18:1 is clear about what to do in the meantime: keep praying.
Do I need to speak beautifully to pray?
No. Romans 8:26 says we do not even know how to pray as we ought and that the Spirit intercedes with ineffable sighing — the Bible already allows for the prayer that will not come out. Luke 18:13 praises precisely the shortest and least prepared one.
Which prayer did Jesus teach?
The Lord’s Prayer, in Matthew 6:9-13, with a shorter version in Luke 11:2-4. It is the only prayer he taught word for word, and it is used by practically every Christian tradition.
A prayer to take with you
Lord, today I do not know what to ask for, and perhaps that is already the prayer. Take what I cannot put into words and teach me to stay here even when no answer comes. Let me not give up talking to you. Amen.