Proverbs 17:15

The Message

Whitewashing bad people and throwing mud on good people are equally abhorrent to God.

Cross References

Exodus 23:7

“Stay clear of false accusations. Don’t contribute to the death of innocent and good people. I don’t let the wicked off the hook.

Proverbs 11:1

God hates cheating in the marketplace; he loves it when business is aboveboard.

Proverbs 15:8

God can’t stand pious poses, but he delights in genuine prayers.

Proverbs 17:26

It’s wrong to penalize good behavior, or make good citizens pay for the crimes of others.

Proverbs 18:5

It’s not right to go easy on the guilty, or come down hard on the innocent.

Proverbs 6:16

Here are six things God hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion: eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.

Isaiah 5:20

Doom to you who call evil good and good evil, Who put darkness in place of light and light in place of darkness, Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

Amos 5:7

Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar and stomp righteousness into the mud. Do you realize where you are? You’re in a cosmos star-flung with constellations by God, A world God wakes up each morning and puts to bed each night. God dips water from the ocean and gives the land a drink. God, God-revealed, does all this. And he can destroy it as easily as make it. He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.

Amos 6:12

Do you hold a horse race in a field of rocks? Do you plow the sea with oxen? You’d cripple the horses and drown the oxen. And yet you’ve made a shambles of justice, a bloated corpse of righteousness, Bragging of your trivial pursuits, beating up on the weak and crowing, “Look what I’ve done!”

Deuteronomy 25:1

When men have a legal dispute, let them go to court; the judges will decide between them, declaring one innocent and the other guilty. If the guilty one deserves punishment, the judge will have him lay himself down before him and lashed as many times as his crime deserves, but not more than forty. If you hit him more than forty times, you will degrade him to something less than human.