Discouragement and depression

³ And Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there,

⁴ while he himself traveled on a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

¹⁷ My soul has been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.

¹⁸ So I say, “My strength has perished, along with my hope from the LORD.”

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and wandering, the wormwood and the gall.

¹⁵ So I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will also befall me. What then have I gained by being wise?” And I said to myself that this too is futile.

¹⁶ For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, just as with the fool, seeing that both will be forgotten in the days to come. Alas, the wise man will die just like the fool!

¹⁷ So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

¹⁸ I hated all for which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.

¹⁹ And who knows whether that man will be wise or foolish? Yet he will take over all the labor at which I have worked skillfully under the sun. This too is futile.

²⁰ So my heart began to despair over all the labor that I had done under the sun.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Look, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished; we are cut off.’

Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed.

¹⁶ May that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without compassion. May he hear an outcry in the morning and a battle cry at noon,

¹⁷ because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb forever enlarged.

¹⁸ Why did I come out of the womb to see only trouble and sorrow, and to end my days in shame?

³ “May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, ‘A boy is conceived.’

⁴ If only that day had turned to darkness! May God above disregard it; may no light shine upon it.

⁵ May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it; may the blackness of the day overwhelm it.

⁶ If only darkness had taken that night away! May it not appear among the days of the year; may it never be entered in any of the months.

²⁰ Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter of soul,

²¹ who long for death that does not come, and search for it like hidden treasure,

²² who rejoice and greatly exult when they can find the grave?

²³ Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

²⁴ I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.

⁷ My soul refuses to touch them; they are loathsome food to me.

⁸ If only my request were granted and God would fulfill my hope:

⁹ that God would be willing to crush me, to unleash His hand and cut me off!

¹⁰ It still brings me comfort, and joy through unrelenting pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.

¹¹ What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What is my future, that I should be patient?

¹³ When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint,

¹⁴ then You frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵ so that I would prefer strangling and death over my life in this body.

¹⁶ I loathe my life! I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

“I loathe my own life; I will express my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul.

“My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me.

¹ From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the LORD his God,

² saying: “In my distress I called to the LORD, and He answered me. From the belly of Sheol I called for help, and You heard my voice.

³ For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current swirled about me; all Your breakers and waves swept over me.

⁴ At this, I said, ‘I have been banished from Your sight; yet I will look once more toward Your holy temple.’

⁵ The waters engulfed me to take my life; the watery depths closed around me; the seaweed wrapped around my head.

⁶ To the roots of the mountains I descended; the earth beneath me barred me in forever! But You raised my life from the pit, O LORD my God!

If you faint in the day of distress, how small is your strength!

³ My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”

⁴ These things come to mind as I pour out my soul: how I walked with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God with shouts of joy and praise.

⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him for the salvation of His presence.

⁶ O my God, my soul despairs within me. Therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon— even from Mount Mizar.

⁷ Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and waves have rolled over me.

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.

¹ Save me, O God, for the waters are up to my neck.

² I have sunk into the miry depths, where there is no footing; I have drifted into deep waters, where the flood engulfs me.

³ I am weary from my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

¹ I cried out to God; I cried aloud to God to hear me.

² In the day of trouble I sought the Lord; through the night my outstretched hands did not grow weary; my soul refused to be comforted.

³ For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.

⁴ I am counted among those descending to the Pit. I am like a man without strength.

⁵ I am forsaken among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, who are cut off from Your care.

⁶ You have laid me in the lowest Pit, in the darkest of the depths.

⁸ He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; He has veiled my paths with darkness.

⁹ He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.

¹⁰ He tears me down on every side until I am gone; He uproots my hope like a tree.

² And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz

³ to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.

When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the great storm continued to batter us, we abandoned all hope of being saved.

But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

I said, “I will never again see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living; I will no longer look on mankind with those who dwell in this world.

⁵ And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of them, chasing them from the gate as far as the quarries and striking them down on the slopes. So the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

⁶ Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown before the ark of the LORD until evening, as did the elders of Israel; and they all sprinkled dust on their heads.

⁷ “O, Lord GOD,” Joshua said, “why did You ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to be destroyed? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!

⁸ O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has turned its back and run from its enemies?

But we were hoping He was the One who would redeem Israel. And besides all this, it is the third day since these things took place.

Then He said to them, “My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.”

¹ Then the whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and that night the people wept.

² All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!

³ Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”

³ The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished with our brothers before the LORD!

⁴ Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here?

⁵ Why have you led us up out of Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates—and there is no water to drink!”

¹² Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons,

¹³ would you wait for them to grow up? Would you refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, it grieves me very much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.”

So Ahab went to his palace, sullen and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had told him, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” He lay down on his bed, turned his face away, and refused to eat.

“The glory has departed from Israel,” she said, “for the ark of God has been captured.”

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the hardships we encountered in the province of Asia. We were under a burden far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.

“If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”

All the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; they lack the strength to flee in the face of the hunter.

Then He said to them, “My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch.”

But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were deeply disturbed that someone had come to seek the well-being of the Israelites.

Seeing that they were in danger because their troops were hard-pressed, the men of Israel hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in cellars and cisterns.