Hear No Evil

Usually, my husband tends to the fireplace, but he wasn’t at home, and when I looked, the logs had burned to ashes. As I got closer, I saw a few glowing embers under a small piece of burnt wood, so I put a bit of scrap tree bark, a thin three-inch strip of rich pine in the ashes, and a new log on the grate. After fanning the embers only for seconds, a blazing fire was warming the room again; it didn’t take long to get a new fire going. Proverbs 26:20–21 says:

“Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth. As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife.”

Gossip spreaders, quarrelsome people, and receivers of others’ slander and arguments are equally guilty of causing trouble and discord. But if no one listened to the gossipers and arguers, there would be no one to pass along their evil, destructive intentions. Their fires would die out—the strife would end.