by Erik Jones

This verse is practical advice geared specifically for kings (political leaders). A king is instructed to identify and rid his kingdom of evil people. This is practical, as it is designed to reduce the cause of crime, not just deal with the effects.

Though Christians cannot execute evil people today, there are modern-day applications of the principle of this proverb:

• We should avoid befriending people of low moral character. We should strive to spend the majority of our free time with people who live by God’s laws (Psalm 119:63).
• We should deal with evil we find in our own lives—sin—by destroying it with a proverbial threshing wheel (1 Corinthians 5:7; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:5).

Read our blog post “Habitual Sin: How to Overcome” to learn more about how to deal with personal sin.

Tomorrow on the Daily Bible Verse Blog: “150 Days.”