Srimad-Bhagavatam: Canto 10 - Chapter 1 - Verse 34

Sanskrit:

अनुग्रहोऽयं भवत: कृतो हि नोदण्डोऽसतां ते खलु कल्मषापह: ।यद् दन्दशूकत्वममुष्य देहिन:क्रोधोऽपि तेऽनुग्रह एव सम्मत: ॥ ३४ ॥

ITRANS:

anugraho ’yaṁ bhavataḥ kṛto hi nodaṇḍo ’satāṁ te khalu kalmaṣāpahaḥyad dandaśūkatvam amuṣya dehinaḥkrodho ’pi te ’nugraha eva sammataḥ

Translation:

What You have done here is actually mercy for us, since the punishment You give to the wicked certainly drives away all their contamination. Indeed, because this conditioned soul, our husband, is so sinful that he has assumed the body of a serpent, Your anger toward him is obviously to be understood as Your mercy.

Purport:

Śrīla Madhvācārya points out in this connection that when a pious person suffers in this world, he realizes, “The punishment the Supreme Lord is meting out to me is actually His causeless mercy.” Envious persons, however, even after being punished by the Lord for their purification, continue to envy Him and be resentful, and this attitude is the reason for their continued failure to understand the Absolute Truth.