Bible Verses to Memorize for a New Year and Fresh Start

New mercies, leaving the old behind, and the road ahead — a resolution that actually lasts: one verse you'll keep instead of one you'll abandon.

5 min read

A new year is a clean page, and most of us mean to fill it better than the last. But resolutions fade by February; verses hidden in the heart do not. So instead of a resolution you'll abandon, consider a verse you'll keep — a single line about God's mercies, His new beginnings, and the road ahead, carried into the year rather than written on a list and lost.

These are verses for fresh starts: for leaving the old behind, trusting the year to come, and setting your face in the right direction.

New mercies

  • Lamentations 3:22–23 — “his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.” The truest New Year's verse — good on January 1 and every day after.
  • 2 Corinthians 5:17 — “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away.”
  • Isaiah 43:18–19 — “Behold, I will do a new thing.”

Leaving the old behind

  • Philippians 3:13–14 — “forgetting those things which are behind… I press toward the mark.”
  • Isaiah 43:25 — He blots out our transgressions and remembers our sins no more.
  • Ezekiel 36:26 — a new heart and a new spirit.

The road ahead

  • Proverbs 3:5–6 — trust, and He directs your paths — a verse to walk the whole year on.
  • Jeremiah 29:11 — plans of peace, a future and a hope.
  • Psalm 37:5 — commit your way unto the Lord.
  • Matthew 6:33 — seek first the kingdom, and the rest is added.
  • Joshua 1:9 — be strong and of a good courage, for the Lord is with you wherever you go.

A resolution that actually lasts

Here is one worth making: learn one verse a month this year. Twelve verses by next December — unhurried, reviewed, and kept — is a resolution you can measure and, more to the point, one that keeps you. Start with Lamentations 3:22–23 on the first of January; there is no better foundation for a new year than mercy that is new every morning.

If a daily rhythm is the goal, the 30-day habit guide is built for exactly this season, and if last year's practice slipped, the guide to getting back will help you begin again without the guilt. Take Root keeps your verse on schedule so the resolution survives past January.

Keep reading

How to Build a Daily Scripture Memory Habit (A 30-Day Plan) A thirty-day plan that turns Scripture memory from a good intention into a daily habit that holds. Getting Back Into Scripture Memory After Falling Behind Fallen off and the reviews have piled up? How to return without the guilt that keeps so many from returning — grace first, one verse at a time. The Best Bible Verses to Memorize First Twenty well-loved verses to begin with — short, deep, and worth carrying — and how to choose your own.