So also in the matter of the envoys of the officials of Babylon, who had been sent to him to inquire about the sign that had been done in the land, God left him to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart.
I turned my mind to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the sum of things and to know that wickedness is folly and that foolishness is madness.
transgressing and denying the Lord and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.
Their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways.
Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,’ and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt.
Even the most refined and gentle of men among you will begrudge food to his own brother, to the wife whom he embraces, and to the last of his remaining children,
She who is the most refined and gentle among you, so gentle and refined that she does not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge food to the husband whom she embraces, to her own son, and to her own daughter,
In the same way, you who are younger must be subject to the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”