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Proverbs 12:21 · World English Bible

Proverbs 12:21 Meaning No Mischief Shall Happen to the Righteous

No mischief shall happen to the righteous, but the wicked shall be filled with evil.

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What does Proverbs 12:21 mean?

A mind at peace with what is cannot be harmed, not because trouble is kept away from it, but because it no longer meets the world as a threat and so finds nothing there to wound it. The just are simply those who have laid down attack; having ceased to accuse, they have nothing left to fear returning to them.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 12:21 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

A mind at peace with what is cannot be harmed, not because trouble is kept away from it, but because it no longer meets the world as a threat and so finds nothing there to wound it. The just are simply those who have laid down attack; having ceased to accuse, they have nothing left to fear returning to them.

The one who still believes in separation is filled with trouble from within, and mistakes it for trouble arriving from without. Every judgment thrown outward comes home as anxiety, so the mind that condemns lives braced against a blow. The whole difference lies in which teacher the mind has chosen, for one shows a world that can hurt, and the other a world that cannot.

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 12:21 today

  1. The next time something small goes wrong, the train, the spilled coffee, the crashed file, say out loud that this is just a thing that happened. Then handle it without the running commentary.
  2. Let one person off today, silently, for something you have been holding. You will feel the weight come off your side, not theirs.
  3. In a tense call or a hard conversation, keep your shoulders down and your voice at normal volume. The body braced for a blow invites one.

What am I defending against that has not actually arrived?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching

He who holds nothing to lose cannot be robbed, and he who makes no enemy meets none on the road.

Stoicism · Epictetus

Events do not disturb you, your judgments about them do. Drop the judgment and the event is just weather.

Zen

A still pond takes the stone and returns to stillness. The water is never actually damaged.

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

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