What Does the Bible Say About Kindness?

"See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can’t escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die. See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn’t it a little one?), and my soul will live.” He said to him, “Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I can’t do anything until you get there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of the sky. He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Abraham went up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived."

"Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you have done this thing?” Abraham said, “Because I thought, ‘Surely the fear of God is not in this place. They will kill me for my wife’s sake.’ Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. When God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is your kindness which you shall show to me. Everywhere that we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’” Abimelech took sheep and cattle, male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and restored Sarah, his wife, to him. Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you. Dwell where it pleases you.” To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. Behold, it is for you a covering of the eyes to all that are with you. In front of all you are vindicated.” Abraham prayed to God. So God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants, and they bore children. For the LORD had closed up tight all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife."

"Now, therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son. But according to the kindness that I have done to you, you shall do to me, and to the land in which you have lived as a foreigner.” Abraham said, “I will swear.” Abraham complained to Abimelech because of a water well, which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away. Abimelech said, “I don’t know who has done this thing. You didn’t tell me, and I didn’t hear of it until today.” Abraham took sheep and cattle, and gave them to Abimelech. Those two made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. Abimelech said to Abraham, “What do these seven ewe lambs, which you have set by themselves, mean?” He said, “You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand, that it may be a witness to me, that I have dug this well.” Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because they both swore an oath there. So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Abimelech rose up with Phicol, the captain of his army, and they returned into the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines many days."

"He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time that women go out to draw water. He said, “LORD, the God of my master Abraham, please give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water. The daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let it happen, that the young lady to whom I will say, ‘Please let down your pitcher, that I may drink,’ then she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink,’—let her be the one you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher on her shoulder. The young lady was very beautiful to look at, a virgin. No man had known her. She went down to the spring, filled her pitcher, and came up. The servant ran to meet her, and said, “Please give me a drink, a little water from your pitcher.” She said, “Drink, my lord.” She hurried, and let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him a drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will also draw for your camels, until they have finished drinking.”"

"She hurried, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again to the well to draw, and drew for all his camels. The man looked steadfastly at her, remaining silent, to know whether the LORD had made his journey prosperous or not. As the camels had finished drinking, the man took a golden ring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold, and said, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me. Is there room in your father’s house for us to stay?” She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” She said moreover to him, “We have both straw and feed enough, and room to lodge in.” The man bowed his head, and worshiped the LORD. He said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his loving kindness and his truth toward my master. As for me, the LORD has led me on the way to the house of my master’s relatives.” The young lady ran, and told her mother’s house about these words. Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban. Laban ran out to the man, to the spring. When he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, “This is what the man said to me,” he came to the man. Behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring."