'Bitter' in the Bible

When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!”

and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.

They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it was named Marah.

In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight, they shall observe it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

‘They will be wasted by famine, and consumed by plagueAnd bitter destruction;And the teeth of beasts I will send upon them,With the venom of crawling things of the dust.

“For their vine is from the vine of Sodom,And from the fields of Gomorrah;Their grapes are grapes of poison,Their clusters, bitter.

Then Abner called to Joab and said, “Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that it will be bitter in the end? How long will you refrain from telling the people to turn back from following their brothers?”

For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, which was very bitter; for there was neither bond nor free, nor was there any helper for Israel.

“Why is light given to him who suffers,And life to the bitter of soul,

“For You write bitter things against meAnd make me to inherit the iniquities of my youth.

While another dies with a bitter soul,Never even tasting anything good.

Who have sharpened their tongue like a sword.They aimed bitter speech as their arrow,

But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,Sharp as a two-edged sword.

A sated man loathes honey,But to a famished man any bitter thing is sweet.

Give strong drink to him who is perishing,And wine to him whose life is bitter.

And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

They do not drink wine with song;Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

“Your own wickedness will correct you,And your apostasies will reprove you;Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitterFor you to forsake the Lord your God,And the dread of Me is not in you,” declares the Lord God of hosts.

“Your ways and your deedsHave brought these things to you.This is your evil. How bitter!How it has touched your heart!”

O daughter of my people, put on sackclothAnd roll in ashes;Mourn as for an only son,A lamentation most bitter.For suddenly the destroyerWill come upon us.

Thus says the Lord,“A voice is heard in Ramah,Lamentation and bitter weeping.Rachel is weeping for her children;She refuses to be comforted for her children,Because they are no more.”

The roads of Zion are in mourningBecause no one comes to the appointed feasts.All her gates are desolate;Her priests are groaning,Her virgins are afflicted,And she herself is bitter.

As for you, son of man, groan with breaking heart and bitter grief, groan in their sight.

“Also they will make themselves bald for youAnd gird themselves with sackcloth;And they will weep for you in bitterness of soulWith bitter mourning.

Ephraim has provoked to bitter anger;So his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on himAnd bring back his reproach to him.

“Then I will turn your festivals into mourningAnd all your songs into lamentation;And I will bring sackcloth on everyone’s loinsAnd baldness on every head.And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son,And the end of it will be like a bitter day.

“On that day they will take up against you a tauntAnd utter a bitter lamentation and say,‘We are completely destroyed!He exchanges the portion of my people;How He removes it from me!To the apostate He apportions our fields.’

“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.