Open in the app
Mid-century illustration of a calm sea at dawn

Genesis 18:25 · World English Bible

Genesis 18:25 Meaning May It Be Far From You

May it be far from you to do things like that, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be like the wicked. May that be far from you. Shouldn’t the Judge of all the earth do right?

Read it in the app

What does Genesis 18:25 mean?

The mind here insists that love cannot treat the innocent as guilty, and in that insistence it is arguing itself toward a truth it half remembers. It cannot bear the thought that righteousness and wickedness should be counted the same, because deep down it knows love does not condemn what is innocent.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Genesis 18:25 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

The mind here insists that love cannot treat the innocent as guilty, and in that insistence it is arguing itself toward a truth it half remembers. It cannot bear the thought that righteousness and wickedness should be counted the same, because deep down it knows love does not condemn what is innocent. What it calls justice is really its plea to be seen as innocent itself.

The One imagined as Judge of all the earth is the mind's own picture of truth, and it trusts that truth must do right. A mind reaching toward that certainty is learning that love judges by looking on innocence, not by sentencing the guilty.

Judge of all the earth: the mind's image of truth itself, the presence it trusts to see rightly and never condemn the innocent.

Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app

Christian Psychology lens

Live Genesis 18:25 today

  1. When you replay a mistake tonight and the verdict comes in harsh, ask what someone who loved you would actually say about it. Use their words instead of yours.
  2. If you are about to hold a friend's one bad day against the whole of who they are, separate the two in your head before you speak. Address the day, keep the person.
  3. Under pressure at work, when the instinct is to find out whose fault it was, ask what would actually help instead. Fixing and blaming rarely fit in the same hour.

Do I believe love sees me as fairly as I want it to see everyone else?

The same truth in other traditions

Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita

The real self in everyone is untouched and cannot be harmed or stained. Seeing that in a person is seeing them correctly, not generously.

Sufism

Mercy is held to run ahead of wrath in the nature of the Real. Love does not weigh you to find you wanting, it looks for the part of you worth calling home.

Taoism

Heaven has no favorites, yet its way always comes out right. Fairness is not a scoreboard kept over you, it is the grain of things.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

Free · No account needed

Read all of Genesis 18 through 17 lenses

Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.

Get Lensightful on the App Store