What does the Bible say about witchcraft?

When people picture witchcraft, they often picture folklore, pointed hats, cauldrons, cackling figures from fairy tales. The Bible has something far more serious and far more real in view. Biblical witchcraft refers to the attempt to manipulate spiritual power, through spells, curses, potions, or rituals, apart from and in defiance of God, in order to control outcomes, harm enemies, or gain hidden knowledge. It is less about costume and more about where a person turns for power and how they attempt to bend reality to their will.

This makes witchcraft, biblically defined, a matter of the heart’s allegiance as much as outward practice. It is an attempt to seize the kind of control and knowledge that Scripture says belongs to God alone, and to get it from another source entirely.

The law given through Moses treats witchcraft with total seriousness: “Do not allow a sorceress to live” (Exodus 22:18), a strict penalty reflecting how gravely Israel’s covenant with God took the practice. As Israel prepared to enter Canaan, Moses expanded the list: “Let no one be found among you who… practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells… Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).

The prophets continued this theme. Micah pictures God removing witchcraft from his people as part of restoring them to faithfulness: “I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longer cast spells” (Micah 5:12). The consistent pattern across the Old Testament is that witchcraft is not treated as a neutral cultural practice but as active rebellion against God’s sole claim on Israel’s trust and worship.

Israel’s first king, Saul, provides a sobering case study. Desperate and abandoned by God’s guidance because of his own persistent disobedience, Saul, who had earlier expelled mediums and spiritists from the land, secretly visited a medium at Endor to summon the dead prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 28:7-19). Rather than finding help, Saul received only confirmation of his coming defeat and death. The chronicler later summarizes the episode with a blunt verdict: Saul “died because he was unfaithful to the Lord… He… consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the Lord” (1 Chronicles 10:13-14).

The story’s lesson is not primarily about the mechanics of the seance but about where Saul turned when God seemed silent. Witchcraft, at its root, is often what desperation reaches for when trusting God feels too slow or too uncertain.

Paul lists witchcraft, translated from the Greek pharmakeia (the root of the English word “pharmacy,” referring to potions and spells) among the “acts of the flesh,” alongside idolatry and hatred, warning that “those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21). Revelation likewise places “those who practice magic arts” outside the New Jerusalem, among those excluded from God’s eternal city (Revelation 21:8, 22:15).

These are severe warnings, and they are meant to be taken seriously, not because God delights in exclusion, but because witchcraft represents a settled, unrepentant pursuit of power apart from him. The warning is aimed at persistent practice, not at anyone who has dabbled and is now seeking a way out.

The book of Acts records one of the most encouraging responses to witchcraft anywhere in Scripture. In Ephesus, a city saturated with magic and sorcery, many who came to faith in Christ brought their scrolls of spells publicly and burned them, an enormous financial sacrifice, valued at fifty thousand silver coins, because they wanted nothing more to do with that power once they had met the true source of power in Jesus (Acts 19:18-19). Verse 20 reports simply, “In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”

That story is the real point for anyone who has practiced witchcraft, dabbled in it out of curiosity, or grown up in a family shaped by it. There is no sin, no practice, no spell book too heavy for the grace of Christ to lift. The same gospel that forgave idolaters, sorcerers, and the sexually immoral in Corinth (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) forgives and cleanses just as completely today. What Christ offers is not simply the absence of witchcraft but the presence of real power, his own Spirit, freely given to anyone who turns to him.