Bible Verses About Afflictions Made Beneficial

After these things, God tempted Abraham, and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am.

He said to him: Take thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision; and there thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will shew thee.

And they talked one to another: We deserve to suffer these things, because we have sinned against our brother, seeing the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear: therefore is this affliction come upon us.

Be not afraid, and let it not seem to you a hard case that you sold me into these countries: for God sent me before you into Egypt for your preservation.

And God sent me before, that you may be preserved upon the earth, and may have food to live.

Not by your counsel was I sent hither, but by the will of God: who hath made me as it were a father to Pharao, and lord of his whole house, and governor in all the land of Egypt.

And they came into Mara, and they could not drink the waters of Mara because they were bitter: whereupon he gave a name also agreeable to the place, calling it Mara, that is, bitterness.

And the people murmured against Moses, saying: What shall we drink?

But he cried to the Lord, and he shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, they were turned into sweetness. There he appointed him ordinances, and judgments, and there he proved him,

Upon which they came to Moses, and said; We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and thee: pray that he may take away these serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

After all the things aforesaid shall find thee, in the latter time thou shalt return to the Lord thy God, and shalt hear his voice.

Because the Lord thy God is a merciful God: he will not leave thee, nor altogether destroy thee, nor forget the covenant, by which he swore to thy fathers.

And thou shalt remember all the way through which the Lord thy God hath brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee and to prove thee, and that the things that were known in thy heart might be made known, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no.

He afflicted thee with want, and gave thee manna for thy food, which neither thou nor thy fathers knew: to shew that not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.

That thou mayst consider in thy heart, that as a man traineth up his son, so the Lord thy God hath trained thee up.

And fed thee in the wilderness with manna which thy fathers knew not. And after he had afflicted and proved thee, at the last he had mercy on thee,

And the children of Israel cried to the Lord: for he had nine hundred chariots set with scythes and for twenty years had grievously oppressed them.

And thy heart hath been moved to fear, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, hearing the words against this place, and the inhabitants thereof, to wit, that they should become a wonder and a curse: and thou hast rent thy garments, and wept before me; I also have heard thee; saith the Lord.

If I shut up heaven, and there fall no rain, or if I give orders, and command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people:

And my people, upon whom my name is called, being converted, shall make supplication to me, and seek out my face, and do penance for their most wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.

But he did not render again according to the benefits which he had received, for his heart was lifted up: and wrath was enkindled against him, and against Juda and Jerusalem.

And he humbled himself afterwards, because his heart had been lifted up, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and therefore the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Ezechias.

And after that he was in distress he prayed to the Lord his God: and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers.

Remember the word that thou commandedst to Moses thy servant, saying: If you shall transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations:

But if you return to me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though you should be led away to the uttermost parts of the world, I will gather you from thence, and bring you back to the place which I have chosen for my name to dwell there.