Listening and Doing

¹⁹ Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

²⁶ And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.”^[a] Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, ²⁷ for anger gives a foothold to the devil.

¹⁹ So Herodias bore a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But without Herod’s approval she was powerless,

⁹ Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?”

“Yes,” Jonah retorted, “even angry enough to die!”

⁵ When Haman saw that Mordecai would not bow down or show him respect, he was filled with rage. ⁶ He had learned of Mordecai’s nationality, so he decided it was not enough to lay hands on Mordecai alone. Instead, he looked for a way to destroy all the Jews throughout the entire empire of Xerxes.

⁴³ “But there are ten tribes in Israel,” the others replied. “So we have ten times as much right to the king as you do. What right do you have to treat us with such contempt? Weren’t we the first to speak of bringing him back to be our king again?” The argument continued back and forth, and the men of Judah spoke even more harshly than the men of Israel.