63 Bible Verses about Complaints

Do all [things] without grumbling and disputing,

Not that I speak from need, for I have learned to be content in whatever [circumstances] I am.

give thanks in everything; for this [is] the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

And it happened, the people were like those who {complain of hardship} {in the hearing} of Yahweh, and Yahweh {became angry}, and the fire of Yahweh burned among them, and it consumed the edge of the camp.

And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, "How long [will I bear] this evil community who are grumbling against me? I have heard the grumbling of the {Israelites} which {they are making} against me.

And Moses said, "When in the evening Yahweh gives you meat to eat and bread in the morning {to fill up on}, {for he hears} your grumblings that you grumble against him--and what [are] we? Your grumblings [are] not against us but against Yahweh."

The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us from Egypt to die in the desert? There is no food and no water, and our hearts detest [this] miserable food."

nor grumble, just as some of them grumbled, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these [things] happened to those [people] as an example, but are written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

And Moses said to Yahweh, "Why have you brought trouble to your servant? Why have I not found favor in your eyes, that the burdens of all these people have been placed on me? Did I conceive all these people? If I have fathered them, that you could say to me, 'Carry them in your lap, just as a foster-father carries the suckling on the land that you swore an oath to their ancestors?' From where do I have meat to give all these people? They weep before me, saying, 'Give us meat and let us eat!'read more.
I am not able to carry all these people along alone; they are too heavy for me. If this is how you [are] going to treat me, please kill me immediately if I find favor in your eyes, and do not let me see my misery."

Then he went into the wilderness one day's journey, and he went and sat under a certain broom tree. Then {he asked Yahweh that he might die}, and he said, "It is enough now, Yahweh; take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors."

"My inner self loathes my life; {I want to give vent to my complaint}; I want to speak out of [the] bitterness of my inner self. I will say to God, 'You should not condemn me; let me know why you contend [against] me.

"Even I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in my spirit's anguish; I will complain in my inner self's bitterness. Am I [the] sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me? When I say, 'My bed will comfort me, and my couch will ease my complaint,'read more.
then you terrify me with dreams, and with visions you terrify me. So my inner self will choose strangling-- death more than my {existence}. I loathe [my life]; I would not live forever; depart from me, for my days [are] a breath. "What [is] a human being that you make him great and that {you fix your mind on him}, so that you visit him {every morning}, you test him {every moment}? {How long} will you not turn away from me? [Or] not leave me alone until I swallow my spit? [If] I have sinned, what have I done to you, watcher of humanity? Why have you made me as a target for yourself, so that I have become a burden to myself? And why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my guilt? For now I shall lie in the dust, and you will seek me, but {I will be no more}."

Though {I say}, 'I will forget my complaint; I will change my expression, and I will rejoice,' I become afraid of all my sufferings; I know that you do not consider me innocent.

[As for] me, [is] my complaint for human beings? And if [so], why cannot I be impatient?

"Even today my complaint [is] bitter; my hand is heavy in addition to my groaning.

Why do you contend against him, that he will not answer all a person's words?

Hear my voice, O God, in my lamenting. Preserve my life from [the] fear of [the] enemy.

Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure, and washed my hands in innocence. And I have been plagued all day and rebuked {every morning}. If I had said, "I will speak thus," behold, I would have acted treacherously against your children's generation.read more.
When I thought about [how] to understand this, it [was] troubling in my eyes until I went into the sanctuary of God. [Then] I understood their fate. Surely you set them on slippery places. You cause them to fall onto ruin. How they become a desolation in a moment! They come to a complete end by terrors. Like a dream upon awakening, when [you] wake up, O Lord, you will despise their fleeting form. When my heart was embittered and I felt stabbed in my kidneys,

I pour out my complaint before him; I declare my trouble before him.

You [will be] in the right, Yahweh, when I complain to you. Even so, let me speak [my] claims with you. Why does [the] way of [the] wicked succeed? All those who deal treacherously with treachery are at ease. Not only do you plant them, they take root. They grow, but also they produce fruit. You [are] near in their mouths, but far from their {inmost beings}. But you, Yahweh, you know me, you see me, and you test [that] my heart [is] with you. Tear them apart like sheep for [the] slaughtering, and set them apart for [the] day of slaughter.read more.
{How long} will the land mourn, and the vegetation of every field dry up, because of the wickedness of those who live in it? [The] animals and [the] birds are swept away, because they have said, "He does not see our future."

And this {was greatly displeasing} to Jonah, and {he became furious}. And he prayed to Yahweh and said, "O Yahweh, [was] this not {what I said} while I was in my homeland? Therefore {I originally fled} to Tarshish, because I knew that you [are] a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger {and having great steadfast love}, and one who relents concerning calamity. And so then, Yahweh, please take my life from me, because [for] me death [is] better than life!"

And [when they] saw [it], the Pharisees began to say to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

And the scribes of the Pharisees, [when they] saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, began to say to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

And the Pharisees and their scribes began to complain to his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?"

But [when] the Pharisees saw [it], they said to him, "Behold, your disciples are doing what it is not permitted to do on the Sabbath!"

And the Pharisees began to say to him, "Behold, why are they doing what is not permitted on the Sabbath?"

But some of the Pharisees said, "Why are you doing what is not permitted on the Sabbath?

"Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat {a meal}."

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unclean hands?"

"Why does this man speak like this? He is blaspheming! Who is able to forgive sins except God alone?"

And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming!"

And both the Pharisees and the scribes were complaining, saying, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!"

Now the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven," and they were saying, "Is this one not Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Do not grumble {among yourselves}!

Now in these days, [as] the disciples were increasing [in number], a complaint arose by the {Greek-speaking Jews} against the {Hebraic Jews} because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution [of food].

And the people thirsted for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, "Why {ever} did you bring us up from Egypt to kill me and my sons and my cattle with thirst?"

And they said to Moses, "Because there are no graves in Egypt? Is that why you have taken us to die in the desert? What [is] this you have done to us by bringing us out from Egypt! Isn't this the word we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, 'Leave us alone [so that] we can serve Egypt!' because serving Egypt is better for us than our dying in the desert."

And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?"

And all the community of the {Israelites} grumbled against Moses and against Aaron in the desert. And the {Israelites} said to them, "{If only we had died} by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread {until we were full}, because you have brought us out to this desert to kill all of this assembly with hunger."

But [when] Paul was about to open [his] mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, "If it was some crime or wicked villainy, O Jews, {I would have been justified in accepting} your complaint. But if it is questions concerning a word and names and {your own law}, see to [it] yourselves! I do not wish to be a judge of these [things]."

And all the community of the {Israelites} grumbled against Moses and against Aaron in the desert.

And you grumbled in your tents, and you said, 'Because of the hatred of Yahweh [toward] us he has brought us out from the land of Egypt to give us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.

And if their fathers or their brothers complain to us, we will say to them, 'Allow us to have them, because we did not capture a wife for each man in the battle, and because you did not give [them] to them, {or else} you would have been guilty.'"

Do not regard your female servant as {worthless}, but because of the extent of my worries and my provocation I have spoken all of this."

"Even I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in my spirit's anguish; I will complain in my inner self's bitterness. Am I [the] sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me? When I say, 'My bed will comfort me, and my couch will ease my complaint,'

Though {I say}, 'I will forget my complaint; I will change my expression, and I will rejoice,'

"My inner self loathes my life; {I want to give vent to my complaint}; I want to speak out of [the] bitterness of my inner self.

Attend to me and answer me. I am restless in my lamenting and I groan,

I remember God and I groan loudly; I meditate and my spirit grows faint.

O Yahweh, hear my prayer, and let my cry for help come to you.

[that] our cattle [may be] pregnant; [that there be] no breach [in our walls], and no going out [in exile], and no outcry in our plazas.

Why should any living person complain about his sin?

But Martha was distracted with much preparation, so she approached [and] said, "Lord, is it not a concern to you that my sister has left me alone to make preparations? Then tell her that she should help me!"

And [when they] saw [it], they all began to complain, saying, "He has gone in to find lodging with a man who is a sinner!"

These [people] are grumblers, discontented, proceeding according to their desires, and their mouths speaking pompous [words], {showing partiality to gain an advantage}.

The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you. Pray to Yahweh and let him remove the snakes from among us." So Moses prayed for the people.

And Moses said to Yahweh, "Then the Egyptians will hear that you brought up this people from their midst in your power, and they will {tell it} to the inhabitants of this land. They heard that you, Yahweh, [are] in the midst of this people, that you are seen eye to eye, and your cloud [is] standing over them, and in a column of cloud you go before them by day and in a column of fire [at] night. But if you destroy this people {all at once}, the nations that will have heard your message will say,read more.
'Yahweh was unable to bring this people in the land that he swore by an oath, and he slaughtered them in the desert.' But now, please, let the power of my Lord be great, just has you spoke, 'Yahweh [is] {slow to anger} and great of loyal love, {forgiving} sin and rebellion; but surely he leaves nothing unpunished, visiting the sin of the fathers on the sons to the third and fourth generations.' Please forgive the sin of this people according to the greatness of your loyal love, just as you {forgave} this people, from Egypt until now." Yahweh said, "I have forgiven [them] according to your word; but as I [am] alive, the glory of Yahweh will fill all the earth. But because all the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the desert yet tested me these ten times and did not listen to my voice, they will not see the land that I swore by oath to their ancestors, and all those who despised me will not see it. But my servant Caleb, because another spirit was with him, he remained true after me, and I will bring him into the land that {he entered}, and his offspring will take possession of it. And the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; tomorrow turn and set out [for] the desert [by] way of the {Red Sea}." And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, "How long [will I bear] this evil community who are grumbling against me? I have heard the grumbling of the {Israelites} which {they are making} against me. Say to them, 'Surely as I live,' {declares} Yahweh, 'just as you spoke {in my hearing}, so I will do to you; in this desert your corpses will fall, and all your counted ones, according to all your number, from {twenty years old} and above who grumbled against me. You [yourselves] will not come into the land that {I swore by oath} to make you to dwell in it, but Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. But your little children, whom you said would be plunder, I will bring them, and they will know the land that you rejected. But for you, all your corpses will fall in this desert. And your children will be shepherds in the desert forty years, and you will bear your unfaithfulness until {all your corpses have fallen} in the desert. According to the number of the days that you explored the land, forty days, {a day for each year}, you will bear your sins forty years, and you will know my opposition.' I, Yahweh, have spoken; I will surely do this to all this evil community who has banded together against me. In this desert they will come to an end, and there they will die." As for the men whom Moses sent to explore the land, who returned and made the community grumble against him by spreading a report over the land, the men who spread the evil report of the land died by the plague {before Yahweh}. But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh lived from [among] the men who went to explore the land. And Moses spoke words to all the {Israelites}, and the people mourned greatly.

The next day all the community of the {Israelites} grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, "You have killed the people of Yahweh!" Then, when the community had gathered against Moses and Aaron, they turned to the tent of assembly, and behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of Yahweh appeared. And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of assembly,read more.
and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Get away from the midst of this community, and I will finish them in an instant," but they fell on their faces. And Moses and Aaron said, "Take the censer, and put fire on it from the altar. Place incense [on it], and bring it quickly to the community, and make atonement for them, because wrath went out from the presence of Yahweh, and a plague has begun." And so Aaron took [it] just as Moses had spoken, and he ran into the midst of the assembly, for behold, the plague had begun among the people; so he gave the incense and made atonement for the people. He stood between the dead and between the living, and the plague was stopped. Those who died by the plague were fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides those who died on account of Korah. Then Aaron returned to Moses at the doorway of the tent of assembly, and the plague was stopped.

And they came to Marah, and they were not able to drink water from Marah because it was bitter. Therefore {it was named} Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" And he cried out to Yahweh, and Yahweh showed him [a piece of] wood, and he threw [it] into the water, and the water became sweet. There he made a rule and regulation for them, and there he tested them.

Then the entire community of the {Israelites} came [to] the desert of Zin on the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh; Miriam died and was buried there. There was no water for the community, and they were gathered before Moses and Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and spoke, saying, "If only we died when our brothers were dying {before} Yahweh!read more.
Why have you brought the assembly of Yahweh, us and our livestock, into this desert to die here? Why have you brought us from Egypt to bring us to this bad place? It is not a place of seed or figs or vines or pomegranate trees, and there is not water to drink." And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of assembly. They fell on their faces, and the glory of Yahweh appeared to them. Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Take the staff and summon the community, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will give water. Bring out for them water from the rock, and let the community and their livestock drink." So Moses took the staff from {before} Yahweh just as he command him, and Moses and Aaron summoned the assembly to the presence of the rock, and he said to them, "Please listen, you rebels; can we bring out water for you from this rock?" Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice. And abundant water went out, and the community and their livestock drank. But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you have not trusted in me, to regard me as holy {in the sight of} the {Israelites}, you will not bring this assembly into the land that I have given to them." Those [were] the waters of Meribah, where the {Israelites} quarreled with Yahweh, and he showed himself holy among them.

And the people quarreled with Moses, and they said, "Give us water so that we can drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test Yahweh?" And the people thirsted for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, "Why {ever} did you bring us up from Egypt to kill me and my sons and my cattle with thirst?" And Moses cried out to Yahweh, saying, "What will I do with this people? A little longer and they will stone me."read more.
And Yahweh said to Moses, "Go on before the people and take with you [some] from the elders of Israel, and the staff with which you struck the Nile take in your hand, and go. Look, I [will be] standing before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you will strike the rock, and water will come out from it, and the people will drink." And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the {Israelites} and because of their testing Yahweh [by] saying, "Is Yahweh in our midst or not?"

Then all the community {lifted up their voices}, and the people wept during that night. And all the {Israelites} grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and all the community said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt or in this desert! Why did Yahweh bring us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little children will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return [to] Egypt?"read more.
{They said to each other}, "Let us appoint a leader, and we will return [to] Egypt." Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces {before} the assembly of the community of the {Israelites}.

And Moses said to Yahweh, "Why have you brought trouble to your servant? Why have I not found favor in your eyes, that the burdens of all these people have been placed on me? Did I conceive all these people? If I have fathered them, that you could say to me, 'Carry them in your lap, just as a foster-father carries the suckling on the land that you swore an oath to their ancestors?' From where do I have meat to give all these people? They weep before me, saying, 'Give us meat and let us eat!'read more.
I am not able to carry all these people along alone; they are too heavy for me. If this is how you [are] going to treat me, please kill me immediately if I find favor in your eyes, and do not let me see my misery." And Yahweh said to Moses, "Gather for me seventy men from the elders of Israel whom you know [are] elders of the people and their officials; take them to the tent of assembly, and they will stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there; I will take away from the spirit that [is] on you, and I will place [it] on them; and they will bear the burdens of the people with you; you will not bear it alone. And you will say to the people, 'Sanctify yourselves tomorrow, for you will eat meat because you have wept in the ears of Yahweh, saying, "Who will feed us good meat? [It was] good for us in Egypt." Yahweh will give to you meat, and you will eat. You will eat, not one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, {but for a whole month}, until it comes out from your nose and becomes as nausea to you; because you have rejected Yahweh, who [is] in your midst, and you wept before {his presence}, saying, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?" '" But Moses said, "[There are] six hundred thousand on foot, among whom I [am] in the midst, and you yourself said, 'I will give meat to them, and they will eat for a whole month.' Should flocks and cattle be slaughtered for them? Should all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to be enough for them?" And Yahweh said to Moses, "{Is Yahweh's power limited}? Now you will see if my word will happen or not." So Moses went out, and he spoke the words of Yahweh to the people, and he gathered [together] seventy men from the elders of the people, and he {made them stand} all around the tent. Then Yahweh went down in the cloud and spoke to him, and he took away the spirit that [was] on him, and he {put it} on the seventy elders. And as soon as the spirit was resting on them they prophesied, but they did not do it again. But two men were left in the camp; the name of one [was] Eldad, and the name of the second [was] Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those who were written [down], but they did not go out to the tent, so they prophesied in the camp. So a boy ran and told Moses and said, "Eldad and Medad [are] prophesying in the camp." And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from time of his youth, answered, "Moses, my lord, stop them." But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that he give all Yahweh's people prophets, that Yahweh put his spirit on them!" Then Moses and the elders of Israel were gathered to the camp. Then a wind set out from Yahweh, and it drove quails from the west, and he spread [them] out on the camp about a day's journey on one side and about a day's journey on the other, all around the camp, about two cubits on the surface of the land. And so the people {worked} all day and all night and all the next day, and they gathered the quail (the least of the ones collecting gathered ten homers). While the meat [was] still between their teeth, before it was consumed, Yahweh was angry with the people, and Yahweh struck a very great plague among the people. And he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah because they buried the people that {were greedy}. From Kibroth Hattaavah the people set out [to] Hazeroth; and they stayed in Hazeroth.

They set out from Mount Hor [by] the way of the {Red Sea} to go around the land of Edom; but {the people became impatient} along the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us from Egypt to die in the desert? There is no food and no water, and our hearts detest [this] miserable food." And Yahweh sent among the people poisonous snakes; they bit the people, and many people from Israel died.read more.
The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you. Pray to Yahweh and let him remove the snakes from among us." So Moses prayed for the people.