When the Righteous Suffer: Suffering and Comfort

A righteous person perishes,And no one considers;The pious are taken away,And no one gives thoughtThat because of evilThe righteous one was taken away. Yet one who walked straightforwardShall come to peace,Shall have rest on their couch. But as for you, come closer,You children of a sorceress,You offspring of an adulterer and a whore! With whom do you act so familiarly?At whom do you open your mouthAnd stick out your tongue?Why, you are children of iniquity,Offspring of treachery— You who inflame yourselvesAmong the terebinths,Under every verdant tree;Who slaughter children in the wadis,Among the clefts of the rocks. With such are your share and portion, They, they are your allotment;To them you have poured out libations,Presented offerings.Should I relent in the face of this? On a high and lofty hillYou have set your couch;There, too, you have gone upTo perform sacrifices. Behind the door and doorpostYou have directed your thoughts;Abandoning Me, you have gone upOn the couch you made so wide.You have made a covenant with them; You have loved bedding with them; You have chosen lust., from root ydd, “to love.” You have approached the king with oil,You have provided many perfumes.And you have sent your envoys afar,Even down to the netherworld. Though wearied by much travel,You never said, “I give up!”You found gratification for your lust,And so you never cared. Whom do you dread and fear,That you tell lies? But you gave no thought to Me,You paid no heed.It is because I have stood idly by so long That you have no fear of Me. I hereby pronounce judgment upon your deeds: Your assorted [idols] shall not avail you, Shall not save you when you cry out.They shall all be borne off by the wind,Snatched away by a breeze.But those who trust in Me shall inherit the landAnd possess My sacred mount. [GOD] says:Build up, build up a highway!Clear a road!Remove all obstaclesFrom the road of My people! For thus said the One who high aloftForever dwells, whose name is holy:I dwell on high, in holiness;Yet with the contrite and the lowly in spirit—Reviving the spirits of the lowly,Reviving the hearts of the contrite. For I will not always contend,I will not be angry forever:Nay, I who make spirits flag, Also create the breath of life. For their sinful greed I was angry;I struck them and turned away in My wrath.Though stubborn, they follow the way of their hearts, I note how they fare and will heal them:I will guide them and mete out solace to them,And to the mourners among them heartening,. comforting is otherwise unknown; its meaning is inferred from that of nid (cf. the verb nad “to condole”) in the parallel expression in Job 16.5. words:It shall be well,Well with the far and the near—said GOD—And I will heal them. But the wicked are like the troubled seaThat cannot rest,Whose waters toss up mire and mud. There is no safety—said my God—For the wicked.

Isaiah 57:1–20 (ESV). The chapter opens with the mournful mystery of the righteous being 'taken away' before evil consumes the land, then pivots to denounce idolatry, and finally opens a highway of holiness for the contrite and lowly.