How can a righteous God permit evil to exist at all?

Again the idea of reading in chronological order has helped me in further understanding Habakkuk. Toward the end of reading Jeremiah (Chapter 47), Habakkuk is inserted before finishing Jeremiah.

Jeremiah has been prophesying against Judah and its oppressor Babylonia. Jeremiah has been foretelling of the eventual conquest of Babylonia over Judah and the forth coming captivity. When a contemporary of Jeremiah, Habukkuk poses a profound theological question. The question is how can a righteous and holy God use a wicked nation like Babylonia to bring punishment against God's own people, rebellious and sinful though they may be? Are not the ruthless Babylonians merely acting on their own in great arrogance and with no thought whatever of achieving any divine purpose? And the question stretches beyond even the present conflicts to other related issues. How can a righteous God permit evil to exist at all?

Although God does not provide all the answers in his dialogue with Habakkuk, he does address the central question. His answer is that evil, wherever it is found, always bears within it the seeds of its own destruction. Judah's sins have condemned it to inevitable destruction. The particular agency by which it comes is of no consequence. But likewise, if the oppressors themselves are evil as the Babylonians are then they too will face their own destruction. Only in righteousness is there life; sin always brings death.