“Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?(A)
    Where were the upright ever destroyed?(B)

Read full chapter

Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?

Read full chapter

25 I was young and now I am old,
    yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken(A)
    or their children begging(B) bread.

Read full chapter

25 I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

Read full chapter

if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials(A) and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.(B)

Read full chapter

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Read full chapter

When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand,(A) they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live.”(B)

Read full chapter

And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.

Read full chapter

He does not take his eyes off the righteous;(A)
    he enthrones them with kings(B)
    and exalts them forever.(C)

Read full chapter

He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous: but with kings are they on the throne; yea, he doth establish them for ever, and they are exalted.

Read full chapter

20 “Surely God does not reject one who is blameless(A)
    or strengthen the hands of evildoers.(B)

Read full chapter

20 Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers:

Read full chapter

A Common Destiny for All

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) 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.

As it is with the good,
    so with the sinful;
as it is with those who take oaths,
    so with those who are afraid to take them.(B)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Ecclesiastes 9:2 Septuagint (Aquila), Vulgate and Syriac; Hebrew does not have and the bad.

For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.

All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

Read full chapter

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

the righteous perishing in their righteousness,
    and the wicked living long in their wickedness.(B)

Read full chapter

15 All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.

Read full chapter

22 It is all the same; that is why I say,
    ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’(A)
23 When a scourge(B) brings sudden death,
    he mocks the despair of the innocent.(C)

Read full chapter

22 This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.

23 If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent.

Read full chapter