However, regarding the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who were sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.
I applied my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness:
In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
Casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Beware that there be not a thought in your wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing; and he cries unto the LORD against you, and it be sin in you.
So that the man that is gentle among you, and very refined, his eye shall show no compassion toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave behind:
The gentle and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot upon the ground because of her gentleness and refinement, her eye shall show no compassion toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,
Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.