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Proverbs 17:15 · World English Bible

Proverbs 17:15 Meaning He Who Justifies the Wicked

He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to Yahweh.

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What does Proverbs 17:15 mean?

To call the guilty innocent while calling the innocent guilty is the same error wearing two faces, for both agree that guilt is real and only argue over where it lands. A mind that plays this game has already chosen fear as its teacher, and so it cannot see truly in either direction.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 17:15 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

To call the guilty innocent while calling the innocent guilty is the same error wearing two faces, for both agree that guilt is real and only argue over where it lands. A mind that plays this game has already chosen fear as its teacher, and so it cannot see truly in either direction. What love asks is not a fairer verdict but the end of the verdict itself. Where no true guilt exists anywhere, there is nothing to justify and nothing to condemn.

The one who stops sentencing another quietly discovers the whole courtroom in the mind has closed, and he was the one set free.

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 17:15 today

  1. When you catch yourself defending someone you like and quietly filing away someone you do not, stop and see that both verdicts came from the same place in you. You can set both down.
  2. When a friend tells you their side of a conflict, listen without ruling on it. You do not have to decide who was wrong for them to feel heard.
  3. In a work disagreement where someone has to take the blame, try asking what needs to happen next instead of who caused it. The fix rarely needs a guilty party.

Where am I still keeping court, and what would the day feel like if I closed it?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 2

The moment we name one thing good, we have made the other bad, and the two arrive together as a single idea. The division is in the naming, not in the world.

Zen · Hsin Hsin Ming

The way is not hard for those who hold no preferences. Set up like and dislike, for and against, and the mind splits in two.

Buddhism

The mind busy weighing who deserves what is the mind still caught in the weighing. Compassion does not sort people into the worthy and the unworthy.

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