3748 verses about Suffering

“Now therefore, what do I do here,” says Yahweh, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them mock,” says Yahweh, “and my name is blasphemed continually all day long.

Behold, my servant will deal wisely. He will be exalted and lifted up, and will be very high.

Just as many were astonished at you (his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men),

For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.

Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.

He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?

They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I give him a portion with the great, and he will divide the plunder with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was counted with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

For Yahweh has called you as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off,” says your God.

“For a small moment I have forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you.

In overflowing wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting loving kindness I will have mercy on you,” says Yahweh your Redeemer.

“You afflicted, tossed with storms, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in beautiful colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires.

The righteous perish, and no one lays it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil.

I was angry because of the iniquity of his covetousness, and struck him; I hid myself and was angry; and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart.

I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners.

‘Why have we fasted,’ say they, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.

and if you pour out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul: then your light will rise in darkness, and your obscurity will be as the noonday;

Therefore is justice far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity.

We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Among those who are strong, we are like dead men.

We all roar like bears, and moan bitterly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

“Foreigners will build up your walls, and their kings will serve you: for in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I have had mercy on you.

to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;

to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give to them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Yahweh, that he may be glorified.

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. He bore them, and carried them all the days of old.

But they rebelled, and grieved his holy Spirit. Therefore he turned and became their enemy, and he himself fought against them.

O Yahweh, why do you make us wander from your ways, and harden our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance.

Your holy people possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.

There is no one who calls on your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have consumed us by means of our iniquities.

Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, is burned with fire; and all our pleasant places are laid waste.

Will you hold yourself back for these things, Yahweh? Will you keep silent, and punish us very severely?

Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for anguish of spirit.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you who tremble at his word: “Your brothers who hate you, who cast you out for my name’s sake, have said, ‘Let Yahweh be glorified, that we may see your joy;’ but it is those who shall be disappointed.

It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.

But the shameful thing has devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

For this, clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn’t turned back from us.

My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”

I will cut off the beautiful and delicate one, the daughter of Zion.

We have heard its report. Our hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor.

Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come on us.

Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says Yahweh of Armies.

“Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh.

We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.

For the hurt of the daughter of my people, I am hurt. I mourn. Dismay has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then isn’t the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Therefore Yahweh of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

Therefore Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

Yahweh of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come.

Let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

Yet hear Yahweh’s word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation.

Gather up your wares out of the land, you who live under siege.

For Yahweh says, “Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.”

Woe is me because of my injury! My wound is serious; but I said, “Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.”

My tent has been destroyed, and all my cords are broken. My children have gone away from me, and they are no more. There is no one to spread my tent any more, to set up my curtains.

The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

Yahweh, correct me, but gently; not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing.

Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to which they offer incense, but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble.

“Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up cry or prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry to me because of their trouble.

But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter. I didn’t know that they had devised plans against me, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.”

But, Yahweh of Armies, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind, I will see your vengeance on them; for to you I have revealed my cause.

You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I would like to reason the cause with you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are they all at ease who deal very treacherously?

But you, Yahweh, know me. You see me, and test my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.

“I have forsaken my house. I have cast off my heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.

My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest. She has uttered her voice against me. Therefore I have hated her.

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion under foot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

They have made it a desolation. It mourns to me, being desolate. The whole land is made desolate, because no one cares.

Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of Yahweh devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No flesh has peace.

But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock has been taken captive.

The cities of the South is shut up, and there is no one to open them. Judah is carried away captive: all of it. It is wholly carried away captive.

What will you say, when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?

If you say in your heart, “Why have these things come on me?” Your skirts are uncovered because of the greatness of your iniquity, and your heels suffer violence.

This is Yahweh’s word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.

“Judah mourns, and its gates languish. They sit in black on the ground. The cry of Jerusalem goes up.

Their nobles send their little ones to the waters. They come to the cisterns, and find no water. They return with their vessels empty. They are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads.

Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.

Yes, the doe in the field also calves and forsakes her young, because there is no grass.

The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation.

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them.

“You shall say this word to them: “‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.

If I go out into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’”

Have you utterly rejected Judah? Has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

It will happen, when they tell you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ Then you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.”’

For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Who will mourn you? Who will come to ask of your welfare?

Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.