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Proverbs 22:10 · World English Bible

Proverbs 22:10 Meaning Drive Out the Mocker

Drive out the mocker, and strife will go out; yes, quarrels and insults will stop.

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What does Proverbs 22:10 mean?

The scorner is not a person to be driven off but the scornful voice within, the ego's habit of contempt that keeps a quarrel alive by always finding another to blame. Cast that voice out, refuse the thought that looks for fault, and the conflict it fed on has nothing left to burn.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 22:10 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

The scorner is not a person to be driven off but the scornful voice within, the ego's habit of contempt that keeps a quarrel alive by always finding another to blame. Cast that voice out, refuse the thought that looks for fault, and the conflict it fed on has nothing left to burn. Strife does not end by winning the argument. It ends when the mind stops hosting the accuser at all.

So peace is never negotiated with an enemy outside. It is restored by releasing the inner judge whose every reproach was guilt seeking a target. Let the scorner go, and the mind grows quiet, because the war it was waging was only ever with itself.

Scorner: the voice of contempt within the mind, the ego's readiness to blame that keeps every quarrel alive

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 22:10 today

  1. Find the running commentary in your head about someone, the one that scores every move they make, and let it stop mid-sentence. Just leave the thought unfinished.
  2. Mute the thread where everyone is tearing into someone, or step out of the conversation where the mocking has become the point. You do not have to announce it.
  3. When you are criticized today, resist the urge to build the case against the critic. Take the one part that might be true and leave the rest where it fell.

What quarrel am I keeping alive by hosting the voice that blames?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism · the Dhammapada

Those who nurse the thought of being wronged keep the quarrel alive. Set the thought down and the hostility has nothing to feed on.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

Drop the judgment that you have been injured and the injury goes with it. The war was being fought inside your own opinions.

Stoicism · Epictetus

It is not the other person who disturbs you but your own view of them. Change the view and there is no one left to quarrel with.

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