Why recite the Bible when it can seem cruel with selfish judgments?

Answer 1

We can judge God as "selfish" only according to a human perspective. God is above that. He doesn't need us, our praises, etc. He created us and instructs us for our own benefit. That is the opposite of selfishness.

Answer 2

Jewish answer: We can judge God as "selfish" only according to a human perspective. God is above that. He doesn't need us, our praises, etc. He created us and instructs us for our own benefit. That is the opposite of selfishness.
1) We have a concept called "the descent of the generations." That means that the people in the generations of the Prophets were on a much higher spiritual level than we are today. An offshoot of this is that more was expected of them by God.

Link: The Prophets
2) All people lived with the Afterlife as part of the larger picture. Belief in the afterlife was part of the shared tradition of all mankind. When viewed in the context of the afterlife, when worthy people who suffered may be recompensed and the prosperous wicked will have the opposite, the apparent injustices of this world become easier to understand. God was strict with those who suffered, among other reasons, in order to render their souls unblemished.

Link: About the afterlife

3) Blaming or accusing God is an easy and common pastime. Rather, we should try directing our judging eye in a completely different direction and see what we come up with. This was the attitude of early generations (Genesis 42:21-22).

4) God doesn't owe anyone anything. Those people enjoyed life, air, water, etc., before they were taken from this Earth. The attitude of "I deserve" is an arrogance.

5) Entire books (such as Job) have long ago been written about this kind of question. Suffice it to say that suffering should be seen as a test, and/or the result of our own (humans') bad choices, and/or a warning (such as pain, which shows you what part of your body needs repair) or a message (Genesis 42:22), and/or mere misinterpretation (such as the bee's sting, which to a child is unmitigated evil but which adults recognize as a protection for that insect which pollinates all fruit-bearing trees).

Link: Job