# Bible verses about guarding your eyes, and what to look at instead > Bible verses about guarding your eyes from the World English Bible: Job's covenant, the lamp of the body, a straight gaze, and looking to Jesus instead. Canonical: https://lucernel.com/guides/bible-verses/guarding-your-eyes Last updated: 2026-10-12 For most people fighting lust, the eyes are where it begins and where it is easiest to interrupt. These passages from the World English Bible give both a boundary and a direction. Read them slowly, then pray the short prayer at the end. **Job 31:1 is the shortest plan in Scripture for the eyes.** I made a covenant with my eyes. Job decides in advance, as a settled agreement, what his eyes will do. He asks how he could look lustfully, as if the question answers itself once the decision is made. (Job 31:1) ## A covenant made in advance Job speaks from a place of integrity, listing what he has refused to do. The first item is about his eyes. A covenant is a promise made before the moment arrives. It works because it moves the decision out of the heat of the moment into a calm hour. Psalm 101 has the same feel. I will set no vile thing before my eyes. David is a king with power to look at anything, and he restricts himself on purpose. Notice the verb: set. The choice is about what you place in front of yourself. > I made a covenant with my eyes; how then should I look lustfully at a young woman? > (Job 31:1) > I will set no vile thing before my eyes. I hate the deeds of faithless men. They will not cling to me. > (Psalm 101:3) - Write your own covenant in one sentence and say it aloud. - Decide which screens and hours it covers. ## A prayer for rescue Not all guarding is done by the person. Psalm 119:37 asks God: turn my eyes away from looking at worthless things, and revive me in your ways. The psalmist does not claim he can steer his own eyes perfectly. He asks for help, and he asks to be revived in God's ways. Psalm 141:3-4 adds a similar prayer about the mouth and the heart: set a watch before my mouth, and do not incline my heart to any evil thing. Guarding is a team effort between you and God. > Turn my eyes away from looking at worthless things. Revive me in your ways. > (Psalm 119:37) > Set a watch, LORD, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips. Don’t incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness with men who work iniquity. Don’t let me eat of their delicacies. > (Psalm 141:3-4) ## The lamp of the body Jesus says that the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light, and if it is not, the whole body is dark. The picture is of the eye as the way light gets in: what you take in through it shapes the rest of you. Just before this, in the Sermon on the Mount, he says that if your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. Most readers take this as vivid language for a serious point: nothing is worth keeping that makes you stumble. For a phone, it means: if an app or account is the way in, cut it off, even if it feels like losing something. > The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! > (Matthew 6:22-23) > You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery;’ but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. > (Matthew 5:27-30) - Cut one way in tonight: delete, block or lock it. - Renounce can keep the apps you choose locked until you have prayed. ## Look straight ahead, and look to God Proverbs 4:23-27 starts with guarding the heart, then turns to the eyes. Let your eyes look straight ahead, and fix your gaze directly before you. Make the path of your feet level and do not turn to the right or left. A person with a destination looks less at what is beside the road. Two psalms point the eyes upward. My eyes are ever on the LORD, says David in Psalm 25:15, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. In Psalm 123 the eyes look to God as servants look to their master's hand. The best guard for the eyes is not blank space. It is someone to look at. > Let your eyes look straight ahead. Fix your gaze directly before you. Make the path of your feet level. Let all of your ways be established. Don’t turn to the right hand nor to the left. Remove your foot from evil. > (Proverbs 4:25-27) > My eyes are ever on the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. > (Psalm 25:15) > A Song of Ascents. I lift up my eyes to you, you who sit in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD, our God, until he has mercy on us. > (Psalm 123:1-2) ## A prayer to say with these verses Lord, I want to see rightly. Turn my eyes from worthless things and give me life in your ways. Help me to keep my covenant tonight. Set a watch before my eyes, and let my eyes be ever on you. Amen. ## Frequently asked questions ### What does it mean to make a covenant with your eyes? In Job 31:1 it means deciding ahead of time, as a promise, what your eyes will and will not do. The decision is made calmly, before the moment of temptation. ### What does Jesus mean about plucking out your eye? In Matthew 5:29 he uses dramatic language to say that dealing with what causes you to stumble is worth any cost. Most readers take it as a call to cut off the cause, such as a habit or access, rather than a literal command. ### What does the eye is the lamp of the body mean? Matthew 6:22-23 says what you take in through your eyes affects your whole inner life, filling it with light or darkness. ### Is a first glance a sin? Matthew 5:28 speaks of looking in order to lust. Proverbs 4:25 and Job 31:1 address what you do with your gaze. The practical goal is to look away early. ### What should I look at instead? Psalm 25:15 says your eyes can be ever on the LORD, and Proverbs 4:25 says to keep your gaze straight ahead on your path. ## Sources (checked 2026-10-01) - [World English Bible (public domain), eBible.org](https://ebible.org/find/details.php?id=engwebp)