¹⁵ In this meaningless life^(A) of mine I have seen both of these:

¹² Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better^(A) with those who fear God,^(B) who are reverent before him.^{(C) 13} Yet because the wicked do not fear God,^(D) it will not go well with them, and their days^(E) will not lengthen like a shadow.

¹⁴ There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve.^(F) This too, I say, is meaningless.^(G)

³⁴ Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify;^(A) others you will flog in your synagogues^(B) and pursue from town to town.^{(C) 35} And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel^(D) to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah,^(E) whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.^(F)

¹² For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days^(A) they pass through like a shadow?^(B) Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

A Common Destiny for All

9 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them.^{(A) 2} All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad,^[a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

⁵² Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute?^(A) They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him^(B)—

Jeremiah’s Complaint