What Does the Bible Say About Adversity?

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 ESV / 224 helpful votes

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;

Proverbs 24:10 ESV / 121 helpful votes

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

Philippians 4:12-13 ESV / 103 helpful votes

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV / 97 helpful votes

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

1 Peter 5:10 ESV / 87 helpful votes

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

Proverbs 3:4-6 ESV / 70 helpful votes

So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Romans 8:28 ESV / 68 helpful votes

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

1 Peter 5:8 ESV / 48 helpful votes

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 47 helpful votes

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

James 1:2-4 ESV / 40 helpful votes

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Joshua 1:9 ESV / 39 helpful votes

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

2 Chronicles 15:7 ESV / 35 helpful votes

But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”

Revelation 21:4 ESV / 34 helpful votes

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

1 Peter 4:12-13 ESV / 27 helpful votes

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

2 Corinthians 1:4 ESV / 27 helpful votes

Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Proverbs 3:4-5 ESV / 27 helpful votes

So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Psalm 34:19 ESV / 26 helpful votes

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

Isaiah 45:7 ESV / 23 helpful votes

I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Hebrews 10:26-31 ESV / 21 helpful votes

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ...

Isaiah 43:18 ESV / 20 helpful votes

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.

Proverbs 15:32 ESV / 20 helpful votes

Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.

Romans 5:1-5 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

1 Corinthians 9:25-27 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Ecclesiastes 10:10 ESV / 15 helpful votes

If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed.

Proverbs 17:17 ESV / 14 helpful votes

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Romans 8:38-39 ESV / 12 helpful votes

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:31 ESV / 12 helpful votes

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

1 Peter 4:1 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,

James 1:13 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV / 11 helpful votes

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Isaiah 40:2 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

James 1:12 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Hebrews 12:2 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Job 15:1-35 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he argue in unprofitable talk, or in words with which he can do no good? But you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God. For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty. ...

Job 2:10 ESV / 8 helpful votes

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

1 Corinthians 14:33 ESV / 7 helpful votes

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,

Isaiah 58:10-11 ESV / 7 helpful votes

If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 ESV / 7 helpful votes

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Psalm 119:67 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.

Psalm 34:1-22 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away. I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. ...

1 Corinthians 15:26 ESV / 6 helpful votes

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Psalm 118:5-6 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?

Hebrews 11:1-40 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. ...

Mark 11:23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Hebrews 9:27 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

Ephesians 3:20 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

Daniel 3:1-30 ESV / 3 helpful votes

King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And the herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. ...

Isaiah 1:1-31 ESV / 3 helpful votes

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ...

1 Kings 16:18 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And when Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king's house and burned the king's house over him with fire and died,

Job 36:1-33 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Elihu continued, and said: “Bear with me a little, and I will show you, for I have yet something to say on God's behalf. I will get my knowledge from afar and ascribe righteousness to my Maker. For truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you. “Behold, God is mighty, and does not despise any; he is mighty in strength of understanding. ...

50 Bible Verses about Adversity