Bible Verses About Afflictions and Adversities

Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.

“Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.

So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”

Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”

The angel of the LORD proceeded: “Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son. And you shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.

He will be a wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”

But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.

But I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he is your offspring.”

Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.

Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.

Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies.

Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

And God was with the boy, and he grew up and settled in the wilderness and became a great archer.

And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

So Isaac left that place and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there.

Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. And he gave these wells the same names his father had given them.

Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of fresh water there.

But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him.

Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.

He moved on from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “At last the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

From there Isaac went up to Beersheba,

and that night the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of My servant Abraham.”