Before the Fall

(Pro 15:25 KJV) The LORD will destroy the house of the proud: but he will establish the border of the widow.

You really don’t want to get on God’s bad side.  This is presented in various forms.  At one place God says that if you mess with the unfortunate in life you will need to deal with their lawyer, which is God himself.  Christians and Jews are told to treat their enemies well, or else.  Here the issue is pride.  God seems to get extra rabid about pride.

On one level pride is a matter of feeling you are better than anyone else.  Why does someone get in the fast lane and drive slower than the flow of traffic?  Why do people park in front of fire hydrants?  Why do they put their fence a few inches on your property?  It eventually gets to the point where these people think they are better than God.  I think that is at the root of a lot of “Bible scholarship” and paraphrases masking as translations.  People figure they know more than God.

So?  I don’t know which should be first, courtesy toward our neighbors or fear of God.  Probably it should be simultaneous.  Destruction seems motivating to me.