38 Bible Verses about Pessimism

And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I will gather in there all my grain and possessions. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many possessions stored up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, celebrate!" ' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your life is demanded from you, and [the things] which you have prepared--whose will they be?'

For we [are] strangers before you and sojourners like all our ancestors. Our days [are] like the shadow upon earth, and there is no hope [of abiding].

"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end {without hope}.

"Indeed, there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, then it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not cease; though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the dust, at the scent of water it will bud, and it will put forth branches like a young plant.read more.
"But a man dies, and he dwindles away; thus a human being passes away, and where is he? [As] water disappears from a lake, and a river withers away and dries up, {so} a man lies down, and he does not arise. {Until the heavens are no more}, they will not awaken, and they will not be roused out of their sleep.

If I hope [for] Sheol [as] my house, [if] I spread my couch in the darkness, [if] I call to the pit, 'You [are] my father,' to the maggot, '[You are] my mother or my sister,' where then [is] my hope? And {who will see my hope}?read more.
Will they go down [to] the bars of Sheol? Or shall we descend together into the dust?"

What [is] my strength, that I should wait? And what [is] my end, that {I should hold out}?

Indeed, I hoped for good, but evil came, and I waited for light, but darkness came.

He has broken my teeth on grit, he has trampled me down in ash. My life has been removed from peace, I have forgotten goodness. And I have said, "My glory is ruined, my expectation from Yahweh."

And he said to me, "Son of man, these bones [are] all of the house of Israel; look! [they are] saying, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is destroyed; {we are cut off as far as we are concerned}.'

"But a mountain falls; it crumbles away, and a rock moves away from its place. Water wears away stones; its torrents wash away [the] soil of [the] earth; so you destroy the hope of human beings.

If indeed you must magnify yourselves against me, and you must let my disgrace argue against me, know then that God has wronged me and has surrounded me [with] his net. "Look, I cry out, 'Violence!' but I am not answered; I cry out, but there is no justice.read more.
He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass; and he has set darkness upon my paths. He has taken my glory from me, and he has removed the crown of my head. He has broken me down all around, and I am gone. And he has uprooted my hope like a tree, and he has kindled his wrath against me, and {he has counted me as one of his foes}. His troops have come together and have thrown up their rampart against me and have encamped around my tent. "He has removed my kinsfolk from me, and my acquaintances have only turned aside from me.

that you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world.

So [are] the paths of all who forget God; and [the] hope of [the] godless will perish, whose confidence is cut off and {whose trust} [is] a spider's house. He will lean himself against his house, but it will not stand; he will take hold of it, but it will not endure.

The dread of the wicked will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

With the death of a wicked person, hope will die, and the expectation of the godless perishes.

Do not fret because of the evildoers; do not envy the wicked. For there will not be a future for the evil; the lamp of the wicked will die out.

And the spirit of {the Egyptians} will be disturbed in his midst, and I will {confuse} his plans, and they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, and the ghosts and the spiritists.

And then on that day," {declares} Yahweh, "the heart of the king and the heart of the officials will be destroyed, and the priests will be appalled, and the prophets will be astonished."

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain came down and the rivers came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it collapsed, and its fall was great."

Now we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you will not grieve as also the rest, who have no hope.

And the men who went up with him said, "We are not able to go up to the people because they [are] stronger than us." And they presented the report of the land that they explored to the {Israelites}, saying, "The land that we went through to explore [is] a land that eats its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in its midst [are] {men of great size}. There we saw the Nephilim (the descendants of Anak [came] from the Nephilim), and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their eyes."

Where [can] we go up? Our brothers have {made our hearts melt}, {saying}, "The people are greater and taller than we are, [and there are] great fortified cities [reaching] up to heaven, and we saw the sons of the Anakites [living] there." '

This day I will begin to place {the dread of you} and the fear of you {before} the peoples under all the heavens. [They] will hear {the report about you}, and [so] they will shake and tremble {because of you}.'

and said to the men, "I know that Yahweh has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away [in fear] because of your presence.

I went [away] full, but Yahweh brought me back empty-handed! Why call me Naomi {when Yahweh has testified against me} and Shaddai has brought calamity upon me?"

When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and very afraid.

When the men of Israel saw that [it was] {too difficult} for them, because the army was hard pressed, the people hid themselves in the caves, in the thorn bushes, in the cliffs, in the vaults and in the wells. [Some] of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. But Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the army {followed him trembling}.

He came to the cave there and spent the night there. Suddenly the [word] of Yahweh came to him and asked him, "{Elijah, what are you doing here}?" Then he said, "I have been very zealous for Yahweh the God of hosts, for the {Israelites} have forsaken your covenant. They have demolished your altars, and they have killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left over, and they seek to take my life.

If we say, 'Let us go [into] the city,' the famine [is] in the city, and we shall die there; but if we sit here, we shall die. So then, come, let us fall into the camp of [the] Arameans. If they let us live, we shall live; but if they kill us, then we shall die."

When it was reported to the house of David, saying "Aram stands by Ephraim," his heart and the heart of his people shook like the shaking of the trees of [the] forest because of [the] wind.

Ashkelon will see and will be afraid, and Gaza will writhe exceedingly, and Ekron [also], because its hope is ruined. And the king from Gaza will perish, and Ashkelon will not be inhabited.

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, who was called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe!"

But [when] neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and [with] not a little bad weather confronting [us], finally all hope was abandoned [that] we would be saved.

Why are you {in despair}, O my soul, and disturbed within me? Hope in God, because I will again praise him, [for] the salvation of his presence.

But [because we] have the same spirit of faith in accordance with [what is] written, "I believed, therefore I spoke," we also believe, therefore we also speak, [because we] know that the one who raised Jesus will also raise us together with Jesus and present [us] together with you. For all [these things] {are for your sake}, in order that the grace that is increasing through the many may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.read more.
Therefore we do not lose heart, but even if our outer person is being destroyed, yet our inner [person] is being renewed day after day.

You must not fear, for I [am] with you; you must not be afraid, for I [am] your God. I will strengthen you, indeed I will help you, indeed I will take hold of you with the right hand of my salvation.

This {I have reminded myself}, therefore I will hope. The loyal love of Yahweh does not cease; his compassions do not come to an end. [They] are new in the morning, great is your faithfulness.read more.
"Yahweh is my portion," says my soul, "Thus I will hope on him."

But we have this treasure in earthenware jars, in order that the extraordinary degree of the power may be from God and not from us. We are afflicted in every [way], but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed;