Sabbath, 11/08/08 at 2:44 PM EST USA
I thought about this quite some time ago and just got around to entering it into my website.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-4

1 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 man knows whether love or hate awaits him.

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. As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.

3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.

4 Anyone who is among the living has hope [b] —even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

So for a long time I "knew" the meaning of the "righteous" are those who believe. But "knowing" is not the same as knowing (meaning you have verses which harmonize with that one verse. And then I found: Romans 1:16-17

Romans 1:16-17

16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."[d]

Saturday evening, 10:37 PM EST USA
[d] Hab. 2:4