"God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, No fishing"
About this Quote
The intent is pastoral and tactical. Ten Boom isn’t merely comforting people who feel stained; she’s trying to break a reflex. Religious guilt has a perverse nostalgia: we replay failures to punish ourselves, to keep control, or to maintain a moral narrative where we’re never let off the hook. She reframes that compulsion as trespassing. If God has already dealt with it, going back to dredge it up isn’t humility; it’s defiance dressed as piety.
The subtext is also communal. “No fishing” reads like advice to onlookers as much as to the sinner: don’t resurrect someone else’s worst moment for sport, leverage, or gossip. Ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor who harbored Jews and later spoke publicly about forgiveness, knew what it meant to live with real, not metaphorical, reasons to keep accounts. The line’s wit is doing moral work: it makes mercy feel sturdy, not sentimental - and it warns that obsession with sin can become its own kind of addiction.
Quote Details
| Topic | Forgiveness |
|---|---|
| Source | Unverified source: Tramp for the Lord (Corrie Ten Boom, 1974)
Evidence: “When we confess our sins,” I said, “God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. And even though I cannot find a Scripture for it, I believe God then places a sign out there that says NO FISHING ALLOWED.” (Chapter 7 ("Love Your Enemy") / Page 5 in an online reproduction). This is the clo... Other candidates (1) Day-to-Day Reflections Psalms and Proverbs (Dr. Beverley Turner, 2024) compilation95.0% ... Corrie Ten Boom says God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, 'No fishing... |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Boom, Corrie Ten. (2026, February 12). God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, No fishing. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/god-buries-our-sins-in-the-depths-of-the-sea-and-172857/
Chicago Style
Boom, Corrie Ten. "God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, No fishing." FixQuotes. February 12, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/god-buries-our-sins-in-the-depths-of-the-sea-and-172857/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, No fishing." FixQuotes, 12 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/god-buries-our-sins-in-the-depths-of-the-sea-and-172857/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.





