How scripture stays when hope is gone, and never fakes the light.
Despair is what’s left when hope goes out. Not sadness, exactly, sadness still cares about something. Despair is flatter and colder than that: the quiet certainty that nothing will change, that trying is pointless, that this gray is simply how things are now. Grief mourns something lost. Fear braces against something coming. Despair has stopped expecting anything at all.
It can arrive after a single blow, a diagnosis, a breakup, a door that closed for good. It can also seep in slowly, with no one cause you could point to, until one morning getting out of bed feels like more than it is worth. And it isolates. It whispers that you are a burden, that no one wants to hear about it again, that reaching out is useless, and so it pulls you further into the dark it came from.
The Bible does not treat despair as a lack of faith to be scolded out of you. Its strongest people fall into it. It gives them room to say the unbearable out loud, to pray angry, to ask God why he seems to have vanished, and it writes those prayers down without tidying them up. It refuses to hand you a slogan. What it offers instead is quieter: a God who comes to the person at the very end of themselves, not with a lecture, but with food, and rest, and a voice low enough that you have to stop to hear it.
This study walks from the lowest point to the first foothold up out of it. It won’t rush you and it won’t pretend the pit is shallow. Read it slowly. Every verse below is a door. Touch one and it opens into the chapter it came from, so you can stand in the whole room a single line was taken from.
The study
Start at the bottom, with a man who has just seen God win in spectacular fashion and wants to die anyway. Elijah has run for his life into the wilderness, and out there, alone and spent, he prays the prayer of someone with nothing left.
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Then he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough. Now, O Yahweh, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”
Watch what God does not do. No rebuke, no lecture about ingratitude. The first thing heaven sends the prophet who has just asked to die is a meal and a nap, the angel’s whole message a gentle “Arise and eat!” 1 Kings 19:5. Only later, and not in the fire or the earthquake, does the answer come, “a still small voice” 1 Kings 19:12.
And here is the boldest thing the Bible does with despair: it keeps a prayer that never climbs back into the light. Psalm 88 is the one psalm that begins in the dark and ends there, and God preserved it word for word rather than smooth it over.
1Yahweh, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you. 2Let my prayer enter into your presence. Turn your ear to my cry. 3For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol. 4I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help,
In the same book, another person finds a way to keep going that isn’t pretending. Instead of waiting to feel better, he turns and talks back to his own sinking soul.
Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence.
The New Testament does not pretend faith exempts you from this. Paul, of all people, describes being crushed past the point of coping, and he uses the exact word.
8For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia: that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life. 9Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead,
So what actually gets you off the wilderness floor? Not a burst of willpower. Scripture keeps promising strength to the ones who have run completely out of it, on a timing they don’t control.
28Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 29He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might. 30Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall; 31but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.
And the road out of despair, when it comes, tends to look less like a sudden sunrise and more like being hauled up by hand and set on ground that finally holds.
1I waited patiently for Yahweh. He turned to me, and heard my cry. 2He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand. 3He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in Yahweh.
One way a conversation about despair can go in Sojourn. The verses are live, the same doors as above.
I don’t even feel sad anymore, I just feel flat and stuck. Nothing is going to change, so what’s the point in trying? People keep telling me not to lose hope, but hope feels like a lie. What am I supposed to do with that?
1Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I don’t make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time!” 3When he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. 4But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Then he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough. Now, O Yahweh, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” 5He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat!” 6He looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on the coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. 7Yahweh’s angel came again the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” 8He arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, God’s Mountain. 9He came to a cave there, and camped there; and behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” 11He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before Yahweh.” Behold, Yahweh passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh; but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake; but Yahweh was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake a fire passed; but Yahweh was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a still small voice. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle, went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. Behold, a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” 15Yahweh said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. 16Anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel; and anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah to be prophet in your place. 17He who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and he who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. 18Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” 19So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. Elijah went over to him and put his mantle on him. 20Elisha left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me please kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” He said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” 21He returned from following him, and took the yoke of oxen, killed them, and boiled their meat with the oxen’s equipment, and gave to the people; and they ate. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and served him. 1Yahweh, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you. 2Let my prayer enter into your presence. Turn your ear to my cry. 3For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol. 4I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help, 5set apart among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. They are cut off from your hand. 6You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. 7Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves. Selah. 8You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape. 9My eyes are dim from grief. I have called on you daily, Yahweh. I have spread out my hands to you. 10Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the departed spirits rise up and praise you? Selah. 11Is your loving kindness declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in Destruction? 12Are your wonders made known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? 13But to you, Yahweh, I have cried. In the morning, my prayer comes before you. 14Yahweh, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? 15I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted. 16Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off. 17They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me. 18You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness. 1As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. 2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” 4These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day. 5Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence. 6My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar. 7Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me. 8Yahweh will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life. 9I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” 10As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” 11Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God. 1Out of the depths I have cried to you, Yahweh. 2Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my petitions. 3If you, Yah, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? 4But there is forgiveness with you, therefore you are feared. 5I wait for Yahweh. My soul waits. I hope in his word. 6My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. 7Israel, hope in Yahweh, for there is loving kindness with Yahweh. Abundant redemption is with him. 8He will redeem Israel from all their sins. 1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: 2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ. 6But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. 7Our hope for you is steadfast, knowing that, since you are partakers of the sufferings, so you are also of the comfort. 8For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia: that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life. 9Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, 10who delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver, on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us, 11you also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift given to us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on your behalf. 12For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you. 13For we write no other things to you than what you read or even acknowledge, and I hope you will acknowledge to the end— 14as also you acknowledged us in part—that we are your boasting, even as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus. 15In this confidence, I was determined to come first to you, that you might have a second benefit, 16and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be sent forward by you on my journey to Judea. 17When I therefore planned this, did I show fickleness? Or the things that I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, that with me there should be the “Yes, yes” and the “No, no?” 18But as God is faithful, our word toward you was not “Yes and no.” 19For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me, Silvanus, and Timothy—was not “Yes and no,” but in him is “Yes.” 20For however many are the promises of God, in him is the “Yes.” Therefore also through him is the “Amen”, to the glory of God through us. 21Now he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, 22who also sealed us and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts. 23But I call God for a witness to my soul, that to spare you, I didn’t come to Corinth. 24We don’t control your faith, but are fellow workers with you for your joy. For you stand firm in faith. 1Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained mercy, we don’t faint. 2But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 3Even if our Good News is veiled, it is veiled in those who are dying, 4in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them. 5For we don’t preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake, 6seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves. 8We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not to despair; 9pursued, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed; 10always carrying in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh. 12So then death works in us, but life in you. 13But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which is written, “I believed, and therefore I spoke.” We also believe, and therefore we also speak, 14knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also through Jesus, and will present us with you. 15For all things are for your sakes, that the grace, being multiplied through the many, may cause the thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. 16Therefore we don’t faint, but though our outward person is decaying, yet our inward person is renewed day by day. 17For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, 18while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 1“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. 2“Speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.” 3The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God. 4Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain. 5Yahweh’s glory shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.” 6The voice of one saying, “Cry out!” One said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field. 7The grass withers, the flower fades, because Yahweh’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass. 8The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever.” 9You who tell good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who tell good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength! Lift it up! Don’t be afraid! Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold, your God!” 10Behold, the Lord Yahweh will come as a mighty one, and his arm will rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom. He will gently lead those who have their young. 12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the sky with his span, and calculated the dust of the earth in a measuring basket, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? 13Who has directed Yahweh’s Spirit, or has taught him as his counselor? 14Who did he take counsel with, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? 15Behold, the nations are like a drop in a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on a balance. Behold, he lifts up the islands like a very little thing. 16Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its animals sufficient for a burnt offering. 17All the nations are like nothing before him. They are regarded by him as less than nothing, and vanity. 18To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him? 19A workman has cast an image, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts silver chains for it. 20He who is too impoverished for such an offering chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks a skillful workman to set up a carved image for him that will not be moved. 21Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you been told from the beginning? Haven’t you understood from the foundations of the earth? 22It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in, 23who brings princes to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. 24They are planted scarcely. They are sown scarcely. Their stock has scarcely taken root in the ground. He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble. 25“To whom then will you liken me? Who is my equal?” says the Holy One. 26Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their army by number. He calls them all by name. By the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is lacking. 27Why do you say, Jacob, and speak, Israel, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, and the justice due me is disregarded by my God”? 28Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 29He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might. 30Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall; 31but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint. 1I waited patiently for Yahweh. He turned to me, and heard my cry. 2He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand. 3He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in Yahweh. 4Blessed is the man who makes Yahweh his trust, and doesn’t respect the proud, nor such as turn away to lies. 5Many, Yahweh, my God, are the wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are toward us. They can’t be declared back to you. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be counted. 6Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering. 7Then I said, “Behold, I have come. It is written about me in the book in the scroll. 8I delight to do your will, my God. Yes, your law is within my heart.” 9I have proclaimed glad news of righteousness in the great assembly. Behold, I will not seal my lips, Yahweh, you know. 10I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great assembly. 11Don’t withhold your tender mercies from me, Yahweh. Let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me. 12For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me. 13Be pleased, Yahweh, to deliver me. Hurry to help me, Yahweh. 14Let them be disappointed and confounded together who seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. 15Let them be desolate by reason of their shame that tell me, “Aha! Aha!” 16Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let such as love your salvation say continually, “Let Yahweh be exalted!” 17But I am poor and needy. May the Lord think about me. You are my help and my deliverer. Don’t delay, my God. 1Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; 2through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; 4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a good person someone would even dare to die. 8But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life. 11Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. 12Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned. 13For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience, who is a foreshadowing of him who was to come. 15But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16The gift is not as through one who sinned; for the judgment came by one to condemnation, but the free gift followed many trespasses to justification. 17For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. 18So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life. 19For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous. 20The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly, 21that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 1“I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God. 3They will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. 4But I have told you these things so that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you about them. I didn’t tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you. 5But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6But because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. 7Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I don’t go away, the Counselor won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment; 9about sin, because they don’t believe in me; 10about righteousness, because I am going to my Father, and you won’t see me any more; 11about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged. 12“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. 13However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you things that are coming. 14He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine and will declare it to you. 15All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that he takes of mine and will declare it to you. 16“A little while, and you will not see me. Again a little while, and you will see me.” 17Some of his disciples therefore said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you won’t see me, and again a little while, and you will see me;’ and, ‘Because I go to the Father’?” 18They said therefore, “What is this that he says, ‘A little while’? We don’t know what he is saying.” 19Therefore Jesus perceived that they wanted to ask him, and he said to them, “Do you inquire among yourselves concerning this, that I said, ‘A little while, and you won’t see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’? 20Most certainly I tell you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. 21A woman, when she gives birth, has sorrow because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she doesn’t remember the anguish any more, for the joy that a human being is born into the world. 22Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. 23“In that day you will ask me no questions. Most certainly I tell you, whatever you may ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full. 25“I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. But the time is coming when I will no more speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father. 26In that day you will ask in my name; and I don’t say to you that I will pray to the Father for you, 27for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God. 28I came from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.” 29His disciples said to him, “Behold, now you are speaking plainly, and using no figures of speech. 30Now we know that you know all things, and don’t need for anyone to question you. By this we believe that you came from God.” 31Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32Behold, the time is coming, yes, and has now come, that you will be scattered, everyone to his own place, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. 33I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble; but cheer up! I have overcome the world.”