is like a kiss on the lips.
27 Finish your outdoor work
and get your fields ready;
after that, build your house.
28 Do not testify against your neighbor without cause,
or use your lips to deceive.
29 Do not say, "I'll do to him as he has done to me;
I'll pay that man back for what he did."
30 I went past the field of the sluggard,
past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment;
31 thorns had come up everywhere,
the ground was covered with weeds,
and the stone wall was in ruins.
32 I applied my heart to what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I saw:
33 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest-
34 and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.
Questions to consider:
- Compare verses 17 and 29.
- How do you know when sleep is necessary versus when it is merely an escape?
- Memorize a proverb!
Possibilities for prayer:
Have you ever heard the saying, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”? I know--it’s a total cliche, but that’s what I think of when I read verse 29. We are not called to respond in kind when we’ve been wronged. The temptation is definitely there, and sometimes that kind of behavior even feels a little bit like justice. But it’s not our responsibility to “pay people back” for what has been done to us. As followers of Jesus, we are called to forgive, not get even. Today, let’s ask that God would be growing within us the ability (and desire) to forgive for the ways we have been wronged, and to let go of the very human desire to “get even.”
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