38 Bible Verses about Pessimism
Most Relevant Verses
I will do this,’ he said. ‘I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there. Then I’ll say to myself, “You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?’
For we live before You as foreigners and temporary residents in Your presence as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
There is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its shoots will not die.
If its roots grow old in the ground
and its stump starts to die in the soil,
the smell of water makes it thrive
and produce twigs like a sapling.
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But a man dies and fades away;
he breathes his last—where is he?
As water disappears from the sea
and a river becomes parched and dry,
so man lies down never to rise again.
They will not wake up until the heavens are no more;
they will not stir from their sleep.
If I await Sheol as my home,
spread out my bed in darkness,
and say to corruption: You are my father,
and to the maggot: My mother or my sister,
where then is my hope?
Who can see any hope for me?
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Will it go down to the gates of Sheol,
or will we descend together to the dust?
What strength do I have that I should continue to hope?
What is my future, that I should be patient?
ו VavHe ground my teeth on gravel
and made me cower in the dust.
My soul has been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is.
Then I thought: My future is lost,
as well as my hope from the Lord.
Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Look how they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished; we are cut off.’
But as a mountain collapses and crumbles
and a rock is dislodged from its place,
as water wears away stones
and torrents wash away the soil from the land,
so You destroy a man’s hope.
If you really want to appear superior to me
and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,
then understand that it is God who has wronged me
and caught me in His net. I cry out: “Violence!” but get no response;
I call for help, but there is no justice.
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He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through;
He has veiled my paths with darkness.
He has stripped me of my honor
and removed the crown from my head.
He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined.
He uproots my hope like a tree.
His anger burns against me,
and He regards me as one of His enemies.
His troops advance together;
they construct a ramp against me
and camp around my tent. He has removed my brothers from me;
my acquaintances have abandoned me.
At that time you were without the Messiah, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
Such is the destiny of all who forget God;
the hope of the godless will perish.
His source of confidence is fragile;
what he trusts in is a spider’s web.
He leans on his web, but it doesn’t stand firm.
He grabs it, but it does not hold up.
What the wicked dreads will come to him,
but what the righteous desire will be given to them.
When the wicked man dies,
his expectation comes to nothing,
and hope placed in wealth vanishes.
Don’t be agitated by evildoers,
and don’t envy the wicked.
For the evil have no future;
the lamp of the wicked will be put out.
Egypt’s spirit will be disturbed within it,
and I will frustrate its plans.
Then they will seek idols, ghosts,
spirits of the dead, and spiritists.
“On that day”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“the king and the officials will lose their courage. The priests will tremble in fear, and the prophets will be scared speechless.”
But everyone who hears these words of Mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. And its collapse was great!”
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we are!” So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.”
Where can we go? Our brothers have discouraged us, saying: The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, fortified to the heavens. We also saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’
Today I will begin to put the fear and dread of you on the peoples everywhere under heaven. They will hear the report about you, tremble, and be in anguish because of you.’
and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you.
I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has pronounced judgment on me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”
When Saul and all Israel heard these words from the Philistine, they lost their courage and were terrified.
The men of Israel saw that they were in trouble because the troops were in a difficult situation. They hid in caves, thickets, among rocks, and in holes and cisterns. Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.
Saul, however, was still at Gilgal, and all his troops were gripped with fear.
He entered a cave there and spent the night.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of Hosts, but the Israelites have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are looking for me to take my life.”
If we say, ‘Let’s go into the city,’ we will die there because the famine is in the city, but if we sit here, we will also die. So now, come on. Let’s go to the Arameans’ camp. If they let us live, we will live; if they kill us, we will die.”
When it became known to the house of David that Aram had occupied Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the hearts of his people trembled like trees of a forest shaking in the wind.
Ashkelon will see it and be afraid;
Gaza too, and will writhe in great pain,
as will Ekron, for her hope will fail.
There will cease to be a king in Gaza,
and Ashkelon will become uninhabited.
But one of the Twelve, Thomas (called “Twin”), was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “If I don’t see the mark of the nails in His hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe!”
For many days neither sun nor stars appeared, and the severe storm kept raging. Finally all hope that we would be saved was disappearing.
Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God.
And since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe, and therefore speak. We know that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and present us with you. Indeed, everything is for your benefit, so that grace, extended through more and more people, may cause thanksgiving to increase to God’s glory. read more.
Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be afraid, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you; I will help you;
I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand.
Yet I call this to mind,
and therefore I have hope: ח KhetBecause of the Lord’s faithful love
we do not perish,
for His mercies never end.
They are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness!
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I say: The Lord is my portion,
therefore I will put my hope in Him.
Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.
