Ecclesiastes 7:15

The Preacher has seen the righteous perish in their righteousness and the wicked prosper in their evil. It matters because life's apparent injustices challenge simplistic assumptions about reward and punishment.

Cross-references · 20

• Eccl 8:12–14Though a sinner commits crimes a hundred times, and lives long, yet surely I know that it will be better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him.
• Eccl 6:12For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?
• Ps 73:3–13For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
• Matt 23:34–35Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city;
• Eccl 9:1–2For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hatred, man doesn’t know it; all is before them.
• Eccl 3:16Moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there.
• 1 Kgs 21:13The two men, the base fellows, came in and sat before him. The base fellows testified against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king!” Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him to death with stones.
• Isa 65:20“No more will there be an infant who only lives a few days, nor an old man who has not filled his days; for the child will die one hundred years old, and the sinner being one hundred years old will be accursed.
• Eccl 2:23For all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.
• Eccl 9:9Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.
• Jer 12:1–2You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I would reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously?
• Gen 47:9Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”
• 2 Chr 24:21–22They conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of Yahweh’s house.
• Ps 39:6“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.
• Eccl 5:16–17This also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind?
• Acts 7:52Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.
• Job 21:7–15“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
• Job 9:22–23“It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.
• 1 Sam 22:18–19The king said to Doeg, “Turn and attack the priests!” Doeg the Edomite turned, and he attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five people who wore a linen ephod.
• John 16:2They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.