Generally, it is favorable to do/act good rather than evil. There are many sayings, such as “a good person does the right thing when no one is watching,” or the ironic “be good for goodness’ sake,” that all have the same message of not only should people do the right thing, but they should do so without ulterior motives. But why should people be good?
Good behavior should be rewarded and evil behavior should be punished, for lack of better terms, because of the inherit rewards for good behavior. I work as a part-time salesman and my employer often pushes me to up-sell or push add-ons onto my potential customers. While there is no harm in recommending an additional product, I’d argue that since not doing so threatens my employment status, it is an evil and predatory practice. Therefore I have to pick and choose when to sell add-ons. Good behavior accommodates the customer’s needs and informs them of all available options. Good behavior as a salesman respects the customer’s decision. The “inherit reward” in this case is building trust between the salesman/company and the customer, which in the long-term, maintains credibility, and revenue.
I concede that successfully upselling/upgrading the customer to something they do not necessarily need for their application has much higher immediate gains, especially if the salesman is compensated with a commission. In doing so, it sacrifices trust and long-term customer maintenance/growth. Those who commit evil acts should be punished so that others are more likely to refrain from committing them. That, and evil activities that are a detriment to others should be mitigated. If we reuse the salesman example and apply it to mainly companies that interact with individual customers(so, we exclude companies that exclusively deal with other companies), then we can conclude that the repeated loss of trust between customers and companies will lead to a less active economy. That is detrimental to everyone.
Acting ethically propels humanity as a whole forward. Acting good or acting ethically promotes the common good. Not necessarily acting selflessly at all times, but rather, not acting selfishly is enough. It promotes cooperation and collaboration which are favorable traits.
So why does God seem to punish Job? Why punish a good man who has committed no sin? I speculate it is to test Job. It could be born from pure curiosity or the influence of the satan. Either I think that while it does not paint the best picture of him, God tested Job and punished the good man to see if his faith was only rooted in his overall past good fortune. Job never spoke ill of God, but it is not explicitly said if he thought ill of him.