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Proverbs 28:10 · World English Bible

Proverbs 28:10 Meaning Whoever Causes the Upright to Go Astray

Whoever causes the upright to go astray in an evil way, he will fall into his own trap; but the blameless will inherit good.

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What does Proverbs 28:10 mean?

An attack aimed at another mind never really leaves the one who sends it. When a self sets out to lead an innocent brother into guilt, it is digging in its own thought, and the hole it opens is the one it falls into.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 28:10 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

An attack aimed at another mind never really leaves the one who sends it. When a self sets out to lead an innocent brother into guilt, it is digging in its own thought, and the hole it opens is the one it falls into. This is not a punishment arranged from outside; it is simply the law that the mind experiences whatever it wishes upon another, because there is finally only one mind dreaming.

The part that keeps to love needs no such scheming and suffers no such fall. Holding to innocence, it already owns everything real, for what it wants for others it has quietly kept for itself.

Pit: the trap of guilt the attacking mind digs in its own thought, the fall it prepares for itself while aiming at another The upright: the part of the mind that keeps to love, holding to innocence and so already possessing everything real

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Live Proverbs 28:10 today

  1. If you are drafting a message designed to land a blow, delete it and write the plain version instead. The satisfaction of the sharp line costs more than it pays, and you are the one who keeps the bill.
  2. When you are tempted to let someone make a mistake you could have warned them about, warn them. Quietly hoping someone fails is a hole you dig for yourself.
  3. In a tense moment at work when there is a chance to make a rival look bad, pass it up. Defending your own innocence is not worth the cost of arranging someone else's guilt.

What am I setting up for someone else that I would not want standing in my own path?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism · Dhammapada

The harm you aim at another lands first in your own hand, the way dust thrown against the wind comes back to the thrower. The intention is already the wound.

Taoism · Chuang Tzu

Watching a mantis stalk a cicada while a bird stalked the mantis, he saw that he himself was being watched from the garden wall. The hunter is always inside the chain he thought he was aiming down.

Hinduism · Upanishads

The self you look at in another is the same self looking out. What you do to them, you do inside the one life you both are.

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