3748 verses about Suffering

Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews.

Mordecai came back to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and having his head covered.

For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for male and female slaves, I would have held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king’s loss.”

Esther spoke yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and begged him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his plan that he had planned against the Jews.

For how can I endure to see the evil that would come to my people? How can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?”

that there came a messenger to Job, and said, “The oxen were plowing, and the donkeys feeding beside them,

and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, there also came another, and said, “The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.”

Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped.

He said, “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be Yahweh’s name.”

In all this, Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing.

Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause.”

Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.

But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.”

Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life.”

So Satan went out from the presence of Yahweh, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head.

He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes.

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die.”

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job didn’t sin with his lips.

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.

When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky.

So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.

After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.

Job answered:

“Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’

Let that day be darkness. Don’t let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it.

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it.

As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months.

Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.

Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,

because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

“Why didn’t I die from the womb? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?

Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse?

For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,

There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest.

There the prisoners are at ease together. They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster.

“Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,

Who long for death, but it doesn’t come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,

who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.

I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; but trouble comes.”

But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.

“Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?

The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.

fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.

How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’

“Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?

His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them,

whose harvest the hungry eats up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance.

For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground;

but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

so that he sets up on high those who are low, those who mourn are exalted to safety.

They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night.

“Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.

For he wounds, and binds up. He injures, and his hands make whole.

Then Job answered,

“Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances!

For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore have my words been rash.

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.

Can that which has no flavor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?

My soul refuses to touch them. They are as loathsome food to me.

even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!

Be it still my consolation, yes, let me exult in pain that doesn’t spare, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.

What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be patient?

Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass?

Isn’t it that I have no help in me, That wisdom is driven quite from me?

“To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty.

My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away;

In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.

The caravans that travel beside them turn away. They go up into the waste, and perish.

The caravans of Tema looked. The companies of Sheba waited for them.

They were distressed because they were confident. They came there, and were confounded.

For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid.

or, ‘Deliver me from the adversary’s hand?’ or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors?’

“Teach me, and I will hold my peace. Cause me to understand wherein I have erred.

How forcible are words of uprightness! But your reproof, what does it reprove?

Do you intend to reprove words, since the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind?

“Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand?

As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages,

so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.

My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good.

The eye of him who sees me shall see me no more. Your eyes shall be on me, but I shall not be.

“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me?

When I say, ‘My bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint;’

then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions:

so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.

I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?

How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?

If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?