Quotes About Suffering

Later, the son of the woman who owned the house became ill, and his sickness grew worse and worse, until no breath remained in him.

“O man of God,” said the woman to Elijah, “what have you done to me? Have you come to remind me of my iniquity and cause the death of my son?”

Then he cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have You also brought tragedy on this widow who has opened her home to me, by causing her son to die?”

So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria,

while he himself traveled on a dayís journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

“My head! My head!” he complained to his father. So his father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”

When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.”

At this time the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken a young girl from the land of Israel, and she was serving Naamanís wife.

So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkeyís head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of doveís dung sold for five shekels of silver.

As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ëGive up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.í

So we boiled my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ëGive up your son, that we may eat him.í But she had hidden her son.”

When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. And as he passed by on the wall, the people saw the sackcloth under his clothes next to his skin.

“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the evil you will do to the Israelites,” Elisha replied. “You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little ones to pieces, and rip open their pregnant women.”

For the LORD saw that the affliction of the Israelites, both slave and free, was very bitter. There was no one to help Israel,

And the LORD afflicted the king with leprosy until the day he died, so that he lived in a separate house while his son Jotham had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.

At that time Menahem, starting from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in its vicinity, because they would not open their gates. So he attacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women.

But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz

By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.

And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead.

Whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. Whereas my father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.í”

and spoke to them as the young men had advised, saying, “Whereas my father made your yoke heavy, I will add to your yoke. Whereas my father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.”