83 Bible Verses about Suffering, Causes Of

Then Yahweh God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you [will be] cursed more than any domesticated animal and more than any wild animal. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put hostility between you and between the woman, and between your offspring and between her offspring; he will strike you [on the] head, and you will strike him [on the] heel." To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase {your pain in childbearing}; in pain you shall bear children. And to your husband [shall be] your desire. And he shall rule over you."read more.
And to Adam he said, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife and you ate from the tree {from which I forbade you to eat}, the ground [shall be] cursed on your account. In pain you shall eat [from] it all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles shall sprout for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until your return to the ground. For from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

[There] was a man in the land of Uz whose name [was] Job. That man was blameless and upright and God-fearing and turning away from evil.

And [as he] went away, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" Jesus replied, "Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but [it happened] so that the works of God could be revealed in him.

Indeed, mischief does not come from the dust, and trouble does not sprout from the earth. But a human being is born to trouble, and {they soar aloft} [like] {sparks}.

Because of this, just as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not charged to one's account [when there] is no law. But death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who is to come.

Then Cain said to his brother Abel, ["Let us go out into the field."] And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

Simeon and Levi [are] brothers; weapons of violence [are] their swords. Let me not come into their council. Let not my person be joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and at their pleasure they hamstrung cattle. Cursed be their anger, for [it is] fierce, and their wrath, for [it is] cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and I will scatter them in Israel.

{On} [the] next day, the evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he prophesied in the middle of the house. Now David was playing [the lyre] with his hand on [that] day {as usual}, and the spear was in Saul's hand. Then Saul hurled the spear and thought, "{I will pin David to the wall}." But David eluded him twice.

Then they spat in his face and struck him with their fists, and they slapped [him],

My God, rescue me from [the] hand of [the] wicked, from [the] {grasp} of [the] evildoer and [the] oppressor,

Adoni-bezek said, "Seventy kings with {their thumbs and big toes} cut off used to pick up [scraps] under my table; just as I have done, so God has repaid to me. And they brought him [to] Jerusalem, and he died there.

For foreigners have risen against me, and ruthless [men] seek my life. They have not set God before them. Selah

Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Ammon and for four I will not revoke [the punishment], because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their territory!

Then Herod, [when he] saw that he had been deceived by the wise men, became very angry, and he sent [soldiers] [and] executed all the children in Bethlehem and in all the region [around] it from [the age of] two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined precisely from the wise men. Then what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled, saying, "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping [for] her children, and she did not want to be comforted, because {they exist no longer}."

And Jesus replied [and] said, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who both stripped him and beat [him]. [After] inflicting blows on [him], they went away, leaving [him] half dead.

Then the king appointed the officer he was depending on over the gate, but the people trampled him and he died, according to that which the man of God had said which he spoke when the king came down to him.

And the crowd joined in attacking them, and the chief magistrates tore off their clothing [and] gave orders to beat [them] with rods.

[The] sound of battle [is] in the land, and great destruction.

And it happened [that] in the days of Amraphel, the king of Shinar, Arioch, the king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer, the king of Elam, and Tidal, the king of Goiim, made war with Bera, the king of Sodom, and Birsha, the king of Gomorrah, Shinab, the king of Admah, and Shemeber, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that [is], Zoar).

And when Pharaoh released the people, God did not lead them the way of the land of the Philistines, though it [was] nearer, because God said, "Lest the people change their mind when they see war and return to Egypt."

So the people shouted, and they blew on the trumpets. And when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, they raised a great shout, and the wall fell flat. {The people charged, each one straight ahead into the city}, and they captured it. And they utterly destroyed {by the edge of the sword} all who [were] in the city, both men and women, young and old, ox, sheep, and donkey.

And Joshua said, "Open the mouth of the cave, and bring to me those five kings from the cave." And they did so, and brought him these five kings from the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon. And when they brought these kings to Joshua, Joshua called all the men of Israel and said to the commanders of {the fighting men} who had gone with him, "Come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings." So they came near and put their feet on their necks.read more.
And Joshua said to them, "Do not be afraid or dismayed! Be strong and bold, for thus Yahweh will do to all your enemies whom you [are] about to fight. And after this Joshua struck them down and killed them, and he hanged them on five trees. And they were hanging on the trees until the evening.

And Judah went up, and Yahweh gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they defeated ten thousand men at Bezek. At Bezek they came upon Adoni-bezek, and they fought against him and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. And Adoni-bezek fled, but they pursued after him; they caught him and cut off {his thumbs and big toes}.read more.
Adoni-bezek said, "Seventy kings with {their thumbs and big toes} cut off used to pick up [scraps] under my table; just as I have done, so God has repaid to me. And they brought him [to] Jerusalem, and he died there.

The battle intensified on that day, and the king was being propped up in the chariot opposite Aram, but he died in the evening, and the blood of the wound ran out to the floor of the chariot.

So the king of Assyria went up in all the land, then he went up [to] Samaria and besieged it [for] three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported Israel to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, in Habor, [in] the river [regions] of Gozan, and [in] the cities of the Medes.

I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, and they will loot the houses, and the women will be raped; half of the city will go into exile, but the remainder of the people will not be cut off from the city.

"But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those {inside it} must depart, and those in the fields must not enter into it, because these are days of vengeance, [so that] all the things that are written can be fulfilled.read more.
Woe to those {who are pregnant} and to those who are nursing [their babies] in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people, and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

And another horse came out, fiery red, and it was granted to the one seated on it to take peace from the earth, and that they would slaughter one another, and a large sword was given to him.

And he said to me, "The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah [is] {exceedingly} great, and the land is filled with bloodguilt, and the city is full of injustice. For they say Yahweh abandoned the land, and {Yahweh does not see}.

And when his master heard the words of his wife that she spoke to him, "{This is what your servant did to me}," {he became very angry}. And Joseph's master took him and put him into prison, the place that the king's prisoners were confined. And he was there in prison.

The men of his city and the elders and nobles who were living in his city did according to what Jezebel had sent to them, as [was] written in the letters which she had sent to them. They called a fast, and they seated Naboth at the head of the people. Then the two men, {scoundrels}, came, sat opposite him, and the {scoundrels} witnessed against Naboth before the people, saying, "Naboth cursed God and the king," so they brought him outside of the city and stoned him with stones, and he died.read more.
They sent to Jezebel saying, "Naboth has been stoned, and he is dead."

Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood until he filled Jerusalem {from one end to another}, apart from his sin which he caused Judah to sin by doing evil in the eyes of Yahweh.

Do you really speak [what is] right [when] silent? [Do] you judge fairly the children of humankind? No, in [your] heart you plan injustices; in the land you weigh out the violence of your hands.

{They carefully plot} injustices [saying], "We have perfected {the perfect plot}!" Both [the] {inner thought} and heart of man [are] deep.

And they appointed commanders of forced labor over them in order to oppress them with their {forced labor}, and they built storage cities for Pharaoh--Pithom and Rameses.

Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all of Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. It happened that Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard [of it] while he was still in Egypt where he had fled from the face of King Solomon, and Jeroboam had lived in Egypt. So they sent and summoned him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came. [Then] they spoke to Rehoboam, saying,read more.
"Your father made our yoke heavy; now lighten the hard labor of your father and the heavy yoke which he placed on us, and we will serve you."

"Because of [the] oppression of [the] afflicted, because of [the] groaning of [the] poor, now I will rise up," Yahweh says. "I shall put [them] in [the] safety [for which] they long."

Come now, you rich people, weep [and] cry aloud over the miseries that are coming upon you! Your wealth has rotted, and your clothing has become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have become corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you, and it will consume your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in the last days.read more.
Behold, the wages that were held back by you from the workers who reap your fields cry out, and the cries of the reapers have come to the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived self-indulgently on the earth and have lived luxuriously. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous [person]; he does not resist you.

Why have you despised the word of Yahweh by doing evil in his eyes? Uriah the Hittite you have struck down with the sword, and his wife you have taken to yourself as wife! You have killed him with the sword of the {Ammonites}!

But you ask, "{For what reason}?" Because Yahweh stands as a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have been unfaithful, even though she [is] your marriage partner and {your wife by covenant}.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and consuming [insect] destroy and where thieves break in and steal,

Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole the idols that belonged to her father.

And a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing, and the female donkeys were feeding {beside them}. Then the Sabeans {attacked}, and they took them, and they slew the servants {by the edge of the sword}. But I escaped, [even] I alone, to tell you."

They remove border [stones]; they seize flocks, and they pasture [them].

My relatives have failed, and my close friends have forgotten me. The sojourners in my house and my slave women count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes. I call to my servant, but he does not answer; I must {personally} plead with him.read more.
My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to {my own family}. Little boys also despise me; [when] I rise, then they talk against me. All {my intimate friends} abhor me, and these [whom] I have loved have turned against me.

If my father or my mother forsake me, then Yahweh will receive me.

A person of perversity will spread dissent, and he who whispers separates a close friend.

And a sharp disagreement took place, so that they separated from one another. And Barnabas took along Mark [and] sailed away to Cyprus,

They also surround me with words of hate, and fight me without cause.

Then Amnon hated her {very deeply}, for the hatred with which he hated her [was] greater than [the] love with which he had loved her. So Amnon said to her, "Get up [and] go."

For we also were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, enslaved to various desires and pleasures, spending our lives in wickedness and envy, despicable, hating one another.

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and were not able to speak peaceably to him.

and Abel also brought [an offering] from {the choicest firstlings of his flock}. And Yahweh looked with favor to Abel and to his offering, but to Cain and to his offering he did not look with favor. And Cain became very angry, and his face fell.

And Abram said to Sarai, "Look, your servant [is] {under your authority}. Do to her that which [is] good in your eyes." And Sarai mistreated her, and she fled from her presence.

And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne Abraham, mocking. Then she said to Abraham, "Drive out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman will not be heir with my son, with Isaac."

{Saul became very angry}, and {this saying displeased him}, and he thought, "They have attributed to David ten thousands, but to me they have attributed thousands! {What more can he have but the kingdom}?" So Saul was watching David [with suspicion] from that day onward.

(For he knew that they had handed him over because of envy.

Remember the word that I said to you: 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the pit [of] Malchiah, the son of the king, which [was] in the courtyard of the guard. And they let Jeremiah down by ropes. Now in the pit there was no water, {but only} mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.

Then the herald proclaimed {aloud}, "To you {it is commanded}, O peoples, {nations and people of all languages}, [that] at the time that you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, [the] lyre, [the] trigon, [the] harp, [the] drum and all kinds of music, you must fall down and you must worship the statue of gold that Nebuchadnezzar the king [has] set up. And {whoever} does not fall down and worship will be thrown {immediately} into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire."

All of [the] administrators of the kingdom, and the prefects, the satraps, the counselors and the governors took counsel [and have] agreed to establish an edict of the king and to enforce a decree that {whoever} will seek a prayer from any god or human except from you [for] up to thirty days will be thrown into {the lion pit}.

Blessed [are] those who are persecuted because of righteousness, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute [you] and say all kinds of evil things against you, lying on account of me. Rejoice and be glad, because your reward [is] great in heaven, for in the [same] way they persecuted the prophets before you.

For I have come to turn a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And the enemies of a man [will be] the members of his household.

And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had, and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "{How long}, holy and true Lord, will you not judge and avenge our blood from those who live on the earth?" And to each one of them a white robe was given, and it was said to them that they should rest yet a short time, until [the number of] their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed as they [had been] were completed also.

(Now Jonathan the son of Saul had a son who [was] crippled in the feet. He [was] five years old when the message of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse had picked him up and fled. It happened that as she [was] hurrying away to flee, he fell and became crippled. His name [was] Mephibosheth.)

Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice in his upper room, which [was] in Samaria, and he was injured. So he sent messengers, and he said to them, "Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, if I will survive this injury."

Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them--do you think that they were sinners worse than all the people who live in Jerusalem?

And it happened [that] after these things, it was said to Joseph, "Behold, your father [is] ill." And he took his two sons with him, Ephraim and Manasseh.

In those days Hezekiah became {deathly ill}, and Isaiah the son of Amoz the prophet came to him and said to him, "Thus says Yahweh, 'Command your house, for you [are about] to die; you will not recover.'"

So Satan went out from {Yahweh's presence}, and he inflicted Job with loathsome skin sores from the sole of his foot up to the crown of his head.

[As] with a shattering in my bones my oppressors taunt me, while they say to me {all day}, "Where [is] your God?"

and saying, "Lord, my slave is lying paralyzed in my house, terribly tormented!"

And it happened that the father of Publius was lying down, afflicted with fever and dysentery. Paul went to {him} and [after] praying, he placed [his] hands on him [and] healed him.

For indeed he was sick, coming near to death, but God had mercy on him and not [on] him only, but also [on] me, so that I would not have grief upon grief.

Erastus remained in Corinth, but Trophimus I left behind in Miletus [because he] was sick.

Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the elders of the church and they should pray over him, anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord.

And there was a famine in the land. And Abram went down to Egypt to dwell as an alien there, for the famine was severe in the land.

Through want and through barren hunger they are gnawing [in the] dry region [in the] darkness of desolation and waste.

Therefore my people will go into exile without knowledge, [and] their nobles [will be] men of hunger, and their multitude [is] parched [with] thirst.

For I was hungry and you did not give me [anything] to eat, I was thirsty and you did not give me [anything] to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not care for me.'

Jehoshaphat built ships of the Tarshish [type] to go to Ophir for the gold; but he did not go because the ships were destroyed at Ezion-Geber.

While this one was still speaking, {another} came and said, "The fire of God fell from the heavens, and it blazed up against the sheep and goats and against the servants, and it consumed them. But I escaped, [even] I alone, to tell you."

You will be punished by Yahweh of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great sound, storm wind and tempest and [the] flame of a devouring fire.