Bible Verses About Afflictions Made Beneficial

Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?

I have surely heard Ephraim’s moaning: ‘You disciplined me severely, like an untrained calf. Restore me, that I may return, for You are the LORD my God.

The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest.

Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.

Remember my affliction and wandering, the wormwood and the gall.

Surely my soul remembers and is humbled within me.

They will bear their punishment—the punishment of the inquirer will be the same as that of the prophet—

in order that the house of Israel may no longer stray from Me and no longer defile themselves with all their transgressions. Then they will be My people and I will be their God, declares the Lord GOD.’”

Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way.

She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’

For I am like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them to pieces and then go away. I will carry them off where no one can rescue them.

Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the LORD his God,

As my life was fading away, I remembered the LORD. My prayer went up to You, to Your holy temple.

The voice of the LORD calls out to the city (and it is sound wisdom to fear Your name): “Heed the rod and the One who ordained it.

This third I will bring through the fire;I will refine them like silverand test them like gold.They will call on My name,and I will answer them.I will say, ‘They are My people,’and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’”

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire, like a launderer’s soap.

And He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

He longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him a thing.

Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food? But here I am, starving to death!

I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

The son declared, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

Now as Jesus was passing by, He saw a man blind from birth,

and His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”