Proverbs 16:4
Proverbs 16:44The LORD has made everything for His purpose— even the wicked for the day of disaster.
Read as Jehovah ensuring that everything ultimately serves his purpose, including the eventual judgment of the wicked. The Watchtower reads the second line as saying that the wicked have made themselves fit for the day of disaster, not that Jehovah made them for it — consistent with its rejection of individual predestination.
This is a verse to raise carefully, and to raise late. Hebrew proverbs are compressed and this one is genuinely difficult; translations differ over whether the wicked are made for the day of disaster or made to serve a purpose that includes it. Do not build a case on the ambiguity, and say so openly — it buys credibility for the points that are not ambiguous. What the verse does establish plainly is scope: everything serves Jehovah's purpose. Nothing falls outside it, including the day of disaster. That much is enough for the question worth asking. The Watchtower teaches that Jehovah foreknew the entire course of the rebellion, could have ended it, and chose to let it run because doing so served his purpose. If everything works for his purpose, and he knew and permitted with that purpose in view, then "permission" is carrying the weight of a decision. The clearer texts for this are and , where the human act and the divine intention are named in one sentence. Compare , , .