2 Samuel 15:21 · World English Bible
Ittai answered the king, and said, “As Yahweh lives, and as my lord the king lives, surely in what place my lord the king is, whether for death or for life, your servant will be there also.”
The worth of a loyalty is set on the day someone hands you a free exit and you refuse it. An oath sworn by the life of Yahweh changes the price of changing your mind, and that price governs behavior at the hour loyalty starts to hurt.
From the Self-Help reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
SELF-HELP
The worth of a loyalty is set on the day someone hands you a free exit and you refuse it.
An oath sworn by the life of Yahweh changes the price of changing your mind, and that price governs behavior at the hour loyalty starts to hurt. An exit offered free and refused out loud stops being an exit at all; a person bound in advance to either outcome stops renegotiating each morning, and the strength most people burn on staying undecided goes into the work instead.
Choosing a king on the day that king walks out of the city with nothing prices the choice at the bottom, where no advantage on offer could be mistaken for the reason. That set the emotion, the emotion set the marching, and within days a foreigner was carrying a third of the army. Answering with a maybe would have kept those men out of danger and lost them everything the oath bought.
Self-Help lens
What have you been keeping a quiet exit from, and what would it cost to close it?
The superior person endures hardship without giving way, while the small person turns loose under the same pressure. Anyone can be loyal while loyalty pays.
Arjuna wants to put down his bow and leave the field, and Krishna tells him that walking away would cost him more than the fight ever could.
Weigh a friendship carefully before you enter it, and once you have entered it, trust without holding anything back. The deciding is done before the hard day arrives.
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Self-Help