3748 verses about Suffering

Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites.

The donkey saw Yahweh’s angel, and she thrust herself to the wall, and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall. He struck her again.

The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even to Hormah.

You returned and wept before Yahweh; but Yahweh didn’t listen to your voice, nor turn his ear to you.

So you stayed in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you remained.

But Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, and didn’t listen to me. Yahweh said to me, “Let this satisfy you. Speak no more to me of this matter.

but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan; but you shall go over, and possess that good land.

Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations, where Yahweh will lead you away.

When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you shall return to Yahweh your God, and listen to his voice.

You shall consider in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you.

for he found her in the field, the pledged to be married lady cried, and there was no one to save her.

Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you came out of Egypt;

how he met you by the way, and struck the rearmost of you, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he didn’t fear God.

The Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us.

Then we cried to Yahweh, the God of our fathers. Yahweh heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed.

Yahweh will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke, in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly; because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me.

Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.

Your sky that is over your head will be brass, and the earth that is under you will be iron.

Yahweh will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed.

Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed.

Yahweh will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.

You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.

You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit.

Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.

Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look, and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand.

A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always;

so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad.

Yahweh will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you can not be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where Yahweh will lead you away.

You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them.

You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go into captivity.

All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you, and overtake you, until you are destroyed; because you didn’t listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you.

therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck, until he has destroyed you.

and they will eat the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, or oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

They will besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which Yahweh your God has given you.

You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you.

so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates.

The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter,

toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates.

then Yahweh will make your plagues fearful, and the plagues of your offspring, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration.

Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul.

Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life.

In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see.

Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told to you that you would never see it again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.

Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come on them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Haven’t these evils come on us because our God is not among us?’

It will happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song will testify before them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten out of the mouths of their descendants; for I know their ways and what they are doing today, before I have brought them into the land which I swore.”

“I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them.

They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, with the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.

Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.

For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone; that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large.

The children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended.

The men of Ai struck about thirty-six men of them, and they chased them from before the gate even to Shebarim, and struck them at the descent. The hearts of the people melted, and became like water.

Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before Yahweh’s ark until the evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.

Joshua said, “Alas, Lord Yahweh, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? I wish that we had been content and lived beyond the Jordan!

Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after Israel has turned their backs before their enemies!

But Adoni-Bezek fled. They pursued him, caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his big toes.

Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their big toes cut off, scavenged under my table. As I have done, so God has done to me.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.

Wherever they went out, Yahweh’s hand was against them for evil, as Yahweh had spoken, and as Yahweh had sworn to them; and they were very distressed.

When Yahweh raised up judges for them, then Yahweh was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it grieved Yahweh because of their groaning by reason of those who oppressed them and troubled them.

Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served Cushan Rishathaim eight years.

The children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.

But when the children of Israel cried to Yahweh, Yahweh raised up a savior for them, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. The children of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab.

The children of Israel cried to Yahweh, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and he mightily oppressed the children of Israel for twenty years.

Why did you sit among the sheepfolds? To hear the whistling for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben, there were great searchings of heart.

The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel; and because of Midian the children of Israel made themselves the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds.

So it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the children of the east came up against them.

They encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, until you come to Gaza. They left no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep, ox, or donkey.

Israel was brought very low because of Midian; and the children of Israel cried to Yahweh.

When the children of Israel cried to Yahweh because of Midian,

Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”

Then he called hastily to the young man his armor bearer, and said to him, “Draw your sword, and kill me, that men not say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’ His young man thrust him through, and he died.”

They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years, they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

The children of Ammon passed over the Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was very distressed.

The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, oppressed you; and you cried to me, and I saved you out of their hand.

Go and cry to the gods which you have chosen. Let them save you in the time of your distress!”

They put away the foreign gods from among them, and served Yahweh; and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.

Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me, and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?”

When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to Yahweh, and I can’t go back.”

At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. She was a virgin. It was a custom in Israel

that the daughters of Israel went yearly to celebrate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.

The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight; and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam’s rock, and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”

When she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, his soul was troubled to death.

The Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he ground at the mill in the prison.

When their hearts were merry, they said, “Call for Samson, that he may entertain us.” They called for Samson out of the prison; and he performed before them. They set him between the pillars;

Samson called to Yahweh, and said, “Lord Yahweh, remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, only this once, God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.”

Samson took hold of the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and leaned on them, the one with his right hand, and the other with his left.

Behold, here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. I will bring them out now. Humble them, and do with them what seems good to you; but to this man don’t do any such folly.”

But the men wouldn’t listen to him: so the man laid hold of his concubine, and brought her out to them; and they had sex with her, and abused her all night until the morning. When the day began to dawn, they let her go.

Then the woman came in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, until it was light.

Her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and behold, the woman his concubine had fallen down at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.

He said to her, “Get up, and let us be going!” but no one answered. Then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place.

The Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered, “I came into Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to spend the night.

The men of Gibeah rose against me, and surrounded the house by night. They intended to kill me, and they raped my concubine, and she is dead.

The children of Benjamin came out of Gibeah, and on that day destroyed twenty-two thousand of the Israelite men down to the ground.

The children of Israel went up and wept before Yahweh until evening; and they asked of Yahweh, saying, “Shall I again draw near to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother?” Yahweh said, “Go up against him.”

Then all the children of Israel, and all the people, went up, and came to Bethel, and wept, and sat there before Yahweh, and fasted that day until evening; then they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before Yahweh.