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Proverbs 23:10 · World English Bible

Proverbs 23:10 Meaning Don’t Move the Ancient Boundary Stone

Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless,

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What does Proverbs 23:10 mean?

To shift the ancient boundary or seize the ground of the defenseless is what the ego always does, redrawing the world so that it gains and another is diminished. Every such taking rests on the belief that one mind's good must come at another's cost, which is the thought of separation made into an act.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 23:10 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

To shift the ancient boundary or seize the ground of the defenseless is what the ego always does, redrawing the world so that it gains and another is diminished. Every such taking rests on the belief that one mind's good must come at another's cost, which is the thought of separation made into an act.

A mind that respects the old landmark honors that nothing rightly belongs to it by another's loss. The defenseless are not truly unprotected, for what is innocent is held by love itself. Whatever a person seems to gain by taking is bought at the price of his own peace.

Old landmark: the ancient boundary of what is right, the given order the ego is tempted to move for its own advantage Fields of the fatherless: the ground of those who seem to have no defender, the innocence the mind is tempted to seize as if it were unprotected

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Live Proverbs 23:10 today

  1. If you took the parking spot, the credit, or the last slot in a line today and you knew it, go back and fix it where you can.
  2. When someone with less standing than you is talked over at work, say their name and hand the floor back.
  3. Under deadline pressure, when the easy move is to push the cost onto someone who will not push back, pay it yourself instead.

Where in your week does your gain quietly rest on someone else's loss?

The same truth in other traditions

Taoism · Tao Te Ching 81

The way of heaven is to help and not to harm. The way of a good person is to act and not to take from others.

Judaism · Hillel

What is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole of it, and the rest is working out the details.

Hinduism · the principle of ahimsa

Do no harm, in deed and also in the small advantages you take when no one is watching. Harm done quietly is still harm.

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