3748 verses about Suffering

He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree.

Then Job answered,

“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!

Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?

I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,

but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.

“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?

But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made desolate all my company.

You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.

He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.

God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.

His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground.

He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs on me like a giant.

I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.

My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids.

Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

“Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.

My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,

For when a few years have come, I shall go the way of no return.

“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.

Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.

“Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?

“But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.

My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.

My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.

They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.

If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’

where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”

Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight?

The light shall be dark in his tent. His lamp above him shall be put out.

The steps of his strength shall be shortened. His own counsel shall cast him down.

Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall chase him at his heels.

His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side.

The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members.

He shall be rooted out of the security of his tent. He shall be brought to the king of terrors.

Those who come after shall be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened.

Then Job answered,

“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?

You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.

If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach;

know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.

He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.

He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.

He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree.

He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.

His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.

“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.

I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.

My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.

My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

“Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me.

Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!

After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,

If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,

He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found. Yes, he shall be chased away like a vision of the night.

In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress shall overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery shall come on him.

He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him.

As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?

When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.

“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?

“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?

Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.

So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”

Therefore snares are around you. Sudden fear troubles you,

or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you.

who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream,

Then Job answered,

“Even today my complaint is rebellious. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.

Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat!

I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.

There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge.

“If I go east, he is not there; if west, I can’t find him;

But he knows the way that I take. When he has tried me, I shall come out like gold.

For God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me.

Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither did he cover the thick darkness from my face.

“Why aren’t times laid up by the Almighty? Why don’t those who know him see his days?

They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves.

They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.

They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.

There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,

So that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves.

They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.

From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly.

He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow.

How much less man, who is a worm, the son of man, who is a worm!”

“As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter

Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him?

If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword. His offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.

He builds his house as the moth, as a booth which the watchman makes.