Proverbs 24:19 · World English Bible
Proverbs 24:19 Meaning Don’t Fret Yourself Because of Evildoers
Don’t fret yourself because of evildoers, neither be envious of the wicked;
What does Proverbs 24:19 mean?
To fret over those who seem to do wrong is to keep believing that guilt lives outside the mind, in someone else, where it can trouble the one who looks. Envy goes further and secretly wishes to trade places with the harm, as if the ego's way of gaining were worth having.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 24:19 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
To fret over those who seem to do wrong is to keep believing that guilt lives outside the mind, in someone else, where it can trouble the one who looks. Envy goes further and secretly wishes to trade places with the harm, as if the ego's way of gaining were worth having.
What upsets a mind here is never the other person, but the value it has quietly given to attack. Withdraw that value, and there is nothing left to fret about, for the mind has taken back its only real possession, which is its own choice of teacher.
Evil men: the figures the mind sets up outside itself to carry the guilt it will not look at within. The wicked: the same projected image, made enviable so the mind can justify wanting to attack as they seem to.
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Christian Psychology lens
Live Proverbs 24:19 today
- Skip the feed or the news cycle that reliably leaves you angry about people you will never meet. Give that half hour to something in front of you.
- When a conversation turns to how someone is getting away with something, let it pass without adding fuel. You can say you would rather talk about something else.
- When you catch yourself envying how someone cuts corners or pushes past others, ask plainly whether you would want to be them. The wanting usually dies on contact with that question.
Whose shortcut am I secretly wishing I had taken, and what would it have cost me?
The same truth in other traditions
Stoicism · Epictetus
Some things are up to you and some are not. Spend your worry on the first list and you will have very little worry left.
Tao Te Ching 22
The one who does not contend has nothing to be taken. There is no rivalry to lose when you stop entering it.
Buddhism · Dhammapada
Do not dwell on the faults of others or on what they have gained. Stay with your own doing, which is the only field you can actually tend.
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