Bible Verses About Afflictions Made Beneficial: In purifying us

Better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for all are destined to be mourned; the living should lay this to heart.

Grief is better than laughter, for sadness can improve a person.

But I will also turn my hand against you! I will cleanse your impurities as with lye and remove all your alloyed base metal.

I will restore your judges as at first and your advisers as at the beginning. After that, you will be called the City of Righteousness, Faithful City.

"Look, I have refined you, but not [as severely] as silver; [rather] I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

"You inhabit a world of deceit; deceitfully they refuse to know me," says ADONAI.

"Therefore," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot, "I will refine them and test them. What else can I do with the daughter of my people?

That third part I will bring through the fire; I will refine them as silver is refined, I will test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'This is my people' and they will say, 'ADONAI is my God.'"

But who can endure the day when he comes? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire, like the soapmaker's lye.

He will sit, testing and purifying the silver; he will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold and silver, so that they can bring offerings to ADONAI uprightly.