An anniversary card should say something about the years, not just the wedding. The wedding verses are fine, but a couple at twenty-five years has been through things the couple at the altar had not, and the best anniversary verses know that. These do.
A verse to start with
For an anniversary card
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone? If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
World English Bible (WEB)
Why this fits
“Two are better than one. If they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.” The Bible’s most practical passage about partnership, and it reads better at an anniversary than at a wedding, because the couple has actually fallen and lifted by now. The cord of three strands is the line people quote; the falling and lifting is the line that means something.
Which verse for the card?
Best overallEcclesiastes 4:9-12 — Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone? If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
ShortColossians 3:14 — Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
After a hard yearSong of Solomon 8:6-7 — Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh. Many waters can’t quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love, he would be utterly scorned.
For a fiftiethGenesis 2:24 — Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.
What to write with it
One line before the verse is usually enough.
To your spouse: [N] years. I’d do all of them again, including the hard ones.
To your parents: Thank you for showing us what it looks like to stay. Happy anniversary.
To friends after a hard year: You two have been through the waters this year and you’re still holding on to each other. Happy anniversary; we’re proud of you.
For a fiftieth: Fifty years. One flesh, and it shows. Congratulations.
6 verses to choose from
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone? If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
World English Bible (WEB) · Wisdom literature
“Two are better than one. If they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.” The Bible’s most practical passage about partnership, and it reads better at an anniversary than at a wedding, because the couple has actually fallen and lifted by now. The cord of three strands is the line people quote; the falling and lifting is the line that means something.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
World English Bible (WEB) · Letter (epistle)
Love is patient, love is kind, and the rest. Written to a church in a fight, as a list of what they were not doing. At an anniversary it is a report card the couple has been passing for years. Love never fails is the line to underline.
Song of Solomon 8:6-7
Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh. Many waters can’t quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love, he would be utterly scorned.
World English Bible (WEB) · Wisdom literature
“Love is strong as death. Many waters can’t quench love.” The Bible’s love poetry, and the waters line is for a couple who have been through some: illness, a lost job, a hard year with a child. Many waters, not none.
Ruth 1:16-17
Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May Yahweh do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
World English Bible (WEB) · Narrative
“Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge.” Said by Ruth to her mother-in-law, not by a bride, and the couple should know that; it makes it better. Loyalty chosen when it would have been easier to leave is what an anniversary celebrates.
Colossians 3:14
Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
World English Bible (WEB) · Letter (epistle)
“Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.” The end of a list about bearing with one another and forgiving. Short, and it names the thing that held the years together: not the feeling, the bond.
Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.
World English Bible (WEB) · Narrative
“They will be one flesh.” The first marriage, and the line Jesus quotes when asked about marriage. For your parents’ anniversary, or a fiftieth, it says the two people have become one thing, which after fifty years is visibly true.
The one I’d leave out
Ephesians 5:22–24 (“wives, submit”). It turns up in anniversary cards and it is instruction about roles, not celebration of years, and it lands badly in a card no matter what you think it means. Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 celebrates the actual thing: two who lift each other up.
How to use these verses
Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 for most anniversaries. Song of Solomon 8:7 for a couple who have had a hard year; say so in your line. Write the number of years in the card; it is the thing being celebrated.
Want more than 6?
These are the ones I’d hand you first. The search covers every verse in the Bible and tells you why each one matched.