1 Kings 12:14 · World English Bible
and spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
A leader is only as wise as the voices he chooses to heed, and Rehoboam listens to the flatterers who echo his pride rather than the elders who counsel restraint. Surrounded by men who tell him what he wants to hear, he mistakes their applause for good judgment.
From the Clinical Psychology reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
A leader is only as wise as the voices he chooses to heed, and Rehoboam listens to the flatterers who echo his pride rather than the elders who counsel restraint. Surrounded by men who tell him what he wants to hear, he mistakes their applause for good judgment. The company you keep shapes the decisions you make.
His words seal a kingdom's fracture. Youthful bravado dressed as strength drives the people away. Whoever leads must court the advice that corrects him, not the advice that inflames him. Traded for comfortable agreement, honest counsel is lost, and the choice that feels bold today becomes the ruin no apology can undo.
Clinical Psychology lens
Whose honest voice have I been quietly keeping at a distance lately?
Keep company with people better than you. Confucius warns that we drift toward whoever surrounds us, so the friends you choose quietly choose your future.
If anyone can show me I am wrong, Marcus writes, I will gladly change. He treats correction as a gift, because no one is harmed by leaving an error behind.
Find yourself a teacher and acquire a friend. The tradition assumes you cannot see your own blind spots, so you need someone close enough to tell you.
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Clinical Psychology