True righteousness leads to life, but the one who pursues evil pursues it to his own death.

The wicked will be thrown down in his trouble, but the righteous have refuge even in the threat of death.

Though his hatred may be concealed by deceit, his evil will be uncovered in the assembly.

“I will deliver you from the power of the wicked. I will free you from the clutches of violent people.”

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that everything comes – both calamity and blessing?

The royal advisers delight the king with their evil schemes, the princes make him glad with their lies.

You refuse to believe a day of disaster will come, but you establish a reign of violence.

But the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.

Today I am weak, even though I am anointed as king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too much for me to bear! May the Lord punish appropriately the one who has done this evil thing!”

When a sentence is not executed at once against a crime, the human heart is encouraged to do evil.

Those who call evil good and good evil are as good as dead, who turn darkness into light and light into darkness, who turn bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter.

But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, I will cancel the destruction I intended to do to it.

Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do. If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing.

So will it happen to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness! When that day dawns, the king of Israel will be destroyed.

When God saw their actions – they turned from their evil way of living! – God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them.

Then the Lord relented over the evil that he had said he would do to his people.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, just like his father Manasseh had done.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord as his ancestors had done.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord as his ancestors had done.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord as his ancestors had done.