What does the Bible say about tattoos?

What we are showing you

This page lists every Bible passage commonly cited in discussions of tattoos. Each is presented in full, with a factual note about its surrounding context. We do not draw conclusions about whether tattoos are permitted, prohibited, or anything in between. That is your call.

”Tattoo” is in the Bible — in many modern translations

The English word “tattoo” appears explicitly at Leviticus 19:28 in many modern translations:

• NIV: Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves.
• BSB: Do not make any cuts in your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves.
• ESV: You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves.
• CJB: Don’t gash your bodies when somebody dies, and don’t tattoo yourselves.

Older translations like the KJV render the same phrase as print any marks upon you because the word “tattoo” did not enter English until the late 18th century, following Captain James Cook’s Pacific voyages (Cook’s journals adopted the Tahitian word tatau). The English vocabulary changed; the Hebrew text did not.

This is therefore a translation history entry, not an absence claim. The verse exists, addresses tattoo marks directly in the most widely used modern translations, and is the only Bible passage to do so.

A note on the Hebrew

The phrase translated “tattoo marks” in Leviticus 19:28 is k’tovet qa’aqa (כְּתֹבֶת קַעֲקַע). This is a hapax legomenon — a phrase that appears only once in the Hebrew Bible. The standard scholarly lexicon (HALOT s.v. qa’aqa) describes the precise meaning as uncertain, noting that the term may refer to any kind of marking on the skin — whether by ink, by puncture, or by another method. Translations therefore differ on how specifically to render the phrase. Modern translations have generally settled on “tattoo” as the closest English equivalent; older translations preserved a more generic “marks” because the vocabulary “tattoo” did not yet exist in English.