Ecclesiastes 7:15
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The Riddles of Life
15 In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing.(A)
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Ecclesiastes 8:12-14
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12 Though sinners do evil a hundred times and prolong their lives, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they stand in fear before him,(A) 13 but it will not be well with the wicked, neither will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God.(B)
14 There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked and wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.(C)
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Ecclesiastes 6:12
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12 For who knows what is good for mortals while they live the few days of their vain life, which they pass like a shadow? For who can tell them what will be after them under the sun?(A)
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Matthew 23:34-35
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34 For this reason I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35 so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
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Acts 7:52
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52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.(A)
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John 16:2
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2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.(A)
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Jeremiah 12:1-2
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Jeremiah Complains to God
12 You will be in the right, O Lord,
when I lay charges against you,
but let me put my case to you.
Why does the way of the guilty prosper?
Why do all who are treacherous thrive?(A)
2 You plant them, and they take root;
they grow and bring forth fruit;
you are near in their mouths
yet far from their hearts.(B)
Isaiah 65:20
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20 No more shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime,
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.(A)
Ecclesiastes 9:9
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9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun,[a] because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.(A)
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- 9.9 Cn: Heb sun, all the days of your vanity
Ecclesiastes 9:1-2
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Take Life as It Comes
9 All this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hate one does not know. Everything that confronts them 2 is vanity,[a] since the same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil,[b] to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice. As are the good, so are the sinners; those who swear are like those who shun an oath.(A)
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Ecclesiastes 5:16-17
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16 This also is a grievous ill: just as they came, so shall they go, and what gain do they have from toiling for the wind?(A) 17 Besides, all their days they eat in darkness, in much anger and sickness and resentment.(B)
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Ecclesiastes 3:16
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Judgment and the Future Belong to God
16 Moreover, I saw under the sun that, in the place of justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well.
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Ecclesiastes 2:23
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23 For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.(A)
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Psalm 73:3-13
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3 For I was envious of the arrogant;
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.(A)
4 For they have no pain;
their bodies are sound and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not plagued like other people.(B)
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them like a garment.(C)
7 Their eyes swell out with fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.(D)
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.(E)
9 They set their mouths against heaven,
and their tongues range over the earth.
10 Therefore the people turn and praise them[a]
and find no fault in them.[b]
11 And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”(F)
12 Such are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.(G)
13 All in vain I have kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.(H)
Psalm 39:6
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6 Surely everyone goes about like a shadow.
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
they heap up and do not know who will gather.(A)
Job 21:7-15
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7 Why do the wicked live on,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?(A)
8 Their children are established in their presence
and their offspring before their eyes.(B)
9 Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon them.(C)
10 Their bull breeds without fail;
their cow calves and never miscarries.(D)
11 They send out their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance around.
12 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre
and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.(E)
13 They spend their days in prosperity,
and in peace they go down to Sheol.(F)
14 They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!
We do not desire to know your ways.(G)
15 What is the Almighty,[a] that we should serve him?
And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’(H)
Footnotes
- 21.15 Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai
Job 9:22-23
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22 It is all one; therefore I say,
‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’(A)
23 When disaster brings sudden death,
he mocks at the calamity[a] of the innocent.(B)
Footnotes
- 9.23 Meaning of Heb uncertain
2 Chronicles 24:21-22
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21 But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of the house of the Lord.(A) 22 King Joash did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him but killed his son. As he was dying, he said, “May the Lord see and avenge!”(B)
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1 Kings 21:13
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13 The two scoundrels came in and sat opposite him, and the scoundrels brought a charge against Naboth in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king.” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death.(A)
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1 Samuel 22:18-19
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18 Then the king said to Doeg, “You, Doeg, turn and attack the priests.” Doeg the Edomite turned and attacked the priests; on that day he killed eighty-five who wore the linen ephod.(A) 19 Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; men and women, children and infants, oxen, donkeys, and sheep, he put to the sword.
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Genesis 47:9
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9 Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my earthly sojourn are one hundred thirty; few and hard have been the years of my life. They do not compare with the years of the life of my ancestors during their long sojourn.”
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