Evil
Scripture treats evil less as an abstract problem than as a concrete movement of will, action, and association. The vocabulary is moral and forensic before it is metaphysical: men "do that which is evil in the sight of Yahweh," nations "make a covenant" with what they should resist, and a believing community is told to "put away the evil from the midst" of itself. Around that core the canon arranges a small set of recurring observations: evil has a will and a hand, it spreads by influence, it grows from small beginnings, it accumulates until it is "full," and it must be both repressed inwardly and refused outwardly. The compound EVIL umbrella draws together the Thompson Chain atoms that map this terrain, and supplements them with the Pauline material gathered under the heading "appearance of evil to be avoided."
What "Doing Evil" Is
The Old Testament's standing formula for human wickedness is verdictive: a king or a generation "did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh" (Jg 2:11; Jg 3:7; Jg 4:1; Jg 6:1; Jg 10:6; Jg 13:1; 1Ki 14:22; 1Ki 15:26; 2Ki 8:27; 2Ki 13:2; 2Ki 14:24; 2Ki 17:2; 2Ki 21:2; 2Ki 23:32; 2Ki 24:9). The phrase makes evil a measured act under divine inspection rather than an inward mood. Nehemiah's confession compresses the cycle — the people "did evil again before you," were given over to enemies, cried out, and were delivered (Ne 9:28). Isaiah extends the language to the audible: "I called, you⁺ did not answer; when I spoke, you⁺ did not hear; but you⁺ did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I did not delight" (Is 65:12). The prophets and Psalms then attach a verdict to the actor: "the face of Yahweh is against those who do evil" (Ps 34:16); "evildoers will be cut off" (Ps 37:9); "depart from me, you⁺ evildoers" (Ps 119:115). Paul carries the same verdictive register over to specific persons: "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord will render to him according to his works" (2TI 4:14).
The Activity of Evil
Evil in Scripture is energetic. "Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths" (Is 59:7), language Paul recovers when he says "their feet are swift to shed blood" (Ro 3:15). Micah's wicked "devise iniquity and work evil on their beds" and rise at first light to do it because "it is in the power of their hand" (Mi 2:1); their hands are on what is evil "to do it diligently," and the great man "utters the evil desire of his soul" (Mi 7:3). Proverbs gives the insomniac portrait: "they don't sleep, except they do evil; And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall" (Pr 4:16); the catalogue of what Yahweh hates includes "feet that are swift in running to mischief" (Pr 6:18). Sirach observes the same hunger for harm: "From a spark, a charcoal increases; And [from] a worthless man, he lies in wait for blood" (Sir 11:32). The New Testament records the activity at lower temperatures too — meddlers, tattlers, and busybodies (1Ti 5:13; 2Th 3:11; 1Pe 4:15) — and warns that the underlying adversary is himself "a roaring lion" who "walks about, seeking whom he may devour" (1Pe 5:8). Even religious zeal can be the engine: Paul names his pre-Damascus persecution of the church as exactly this kind of activity (Ga 1:13; Php 3:6).
Evil Desire and Evil Passion
The activity is fed by appetite. "The soul of the wicked desires evil: His fellow man finds no favor in his eyes" (Pr 21:10), and the desire itself has no satiety: "the horseleach has two daughters, [crying] Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, [Yes,] four that don't say, Enough" (Pr 30:15). Habakkuk's arrogant man "enlarges his soul as Sheol, and he is as death, and can't be satisfied" (Hab 2:5). John's tripartite summary — "the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the vainglory of life" — locates the appetite in the world rather than in the Father (1Jn 2:16). Paul says the unconverted "lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind" (Ep 2:3); James traces wars and killings back to thwarted lust (Jas 4:2); Mark calls "the desires of other things" one of the choking thorns of the parable (Mr 4:19); Paul cites the wilderness craving as the warning case — "we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted" (1Co 10:6; Nu 11:4). Sirach develops the warning into a small ethics of self-restraint: "Do not go after your heart and your eyes, To walk in the pleasures of evil" (Sir 5:2); "Do not fall into the hand of your desire; Or it will smother your strength over you" (Sir 6:2); excessive desire "destroys its owners" (Sir 6:4); "Do not go after your desires, And refrain yourself from your appetites" (Sir 18:30). The verdict is direct: "He who has pleasure in evil will be condemned" (Sir 19:5), and even where present opportunity is lacking, "he will do evil when he finds opportunity" (Sir 19:28).
The same appetitive root surfaces under the apostolic word "passion." Paul names "immoral sexual passion" as the Gentile mark (1Th 4:5) and the divine handing-over (Ro 1:26); when "we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were through the law, worked in our members to bring forth fruit to death" (Ro 7:5). The Christian counter-action is surgical: "those who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Ga 5:24).
The Roots and Fulness of Evil
Scripture occasionally measures evil by depth and by capacity. Isaiah pictures ungodly Israel under fire so that "their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of hosts, and despised the [Speech] of the Holy One of Israel" (Is 5:24). Malachi promises a day that "will leave them neither root nor branch" (Mal 4:1). Jude's apostates are "autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots" (Jud 1:12). Alongside the root image stands a fulness measure: God tells Abraham that the conquest must wait because "the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full" (Ge 15:16); Ecclesiastes reports that "the heart of the sons of man is full of evil" (Ec 9:3); and Paul completes the picture in his catalogue of Gentile vices — "being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity" (Ro 1:29).
Little Evils
A small evil is not a safe evil. "Your⁺ glorying is not good. Don't you⁺ know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" (1Co 5:6; cf. Ga 5:9). Ecclesiastes says "dead flies cause the oil of the perfumer to gush forth a stench; [so] does a little folly outweigh wisdom and honor" (Ec 10:1). Proverbs warns of "a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep" (Pr 6:10), and Song of Solomon adds, "take for us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vineyards" (Ss 2:15). Sirach codifies the principle in two complementary directions — "Little or great, do not destroy" (Sir 5:15), and "he who despises small things will become altogether naked" (Sir 19:1).
Evil Influence and Evil Alliance
Evil is contagious. The leaven sayings of 1Co 5:6 and Ga 5:9 stand under this heading too, and Paul's argument from idol meat assumes them: "if a man sees you who has knowledge sitting at meat in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols?" (1Co 8:10), and "if because of meat your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don't destroy with your meat him for whom Christ died" (Ro 14:15). The Old Testament gives the personal cases: Solomon's wives "turned away his heart after other gods" (1Ki 11:4); Ahab "sold himself to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up" (1Ki 21:25); Jehoram of Judah "had the daughter of Ahab as wife: and he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh" (2Ch 21:6). Bad leadership broadcasts: "from the prophets of Jerusalem has ungodliness gone forth into all the land" (Je 23:15); the chief priests "stirred up the multitude" against Jesus (Mr 15:11); the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles "because of you⁺" (Ro 2:24). Sirach gives the blunt rule: "Do not stick to the wicked or he will overthrow you" (Sir 11:34).
The alliance form of this is the political and religious entanglement Scripture repeatedly censures. Israel's kings "join affinity" or "join themselves" with the wicked (2Ch 18:1; 2Ch 20:35); Asa proposes a league (1Ki 15:19); Ephraim "makes a covenant with Assyria" (Ho 12:1); the southern kingdom is condemned for going "down into Egypt" without inquiring of Yahweh (Is 30:2; Is 31:1); Jeremiah's prophetic Israel "loved strangers" and chases after them (Je 2:25). The opposing side does the same in mirror: Eglon gathers Ammon and Amalek (Jg 3:13); the Amorite kings band together (Jos 9:2; Jos 10:5; Jos 10:33; Jos 11:5); the kings of the earth "set themselves... against Yahweh, and against his anointed" (Ps 2:2); the wicked confederate against the righteous (Ps 56:6; Ps 83:5); Micah's nations gather "against you" (Mi 4:11). 1 Maccabees registers both an apostate covenant — "let's go, and make a covenant with the nations that are round about us: for since we departed from them, many evils have befallen us" (1Ma 1:11) — and a worldly intrigue between Ptolemy and Demetrius (1Ma 11:8-9; cf. 1Ma 5:39; 1Ma 10:14). Sirach warns against the personal version: arming, accompanying, or partnering with a violent man (Sir 12:5; Sir 12:14).
The Unity of Evil
Where the evil party is broad it is also strangely unified. The wilderness assembly murmurs "the whole congregation of the sons of Israel" against Moses and Aaron (Ex 16:2); the eschatological kings "have one mind, and they give their power and authority to the beast" (Re 17:13). Concord in itself is no proof of righteousness.
Evil Generations
Scripture extends the moral diagnosis to whole cohorts. Moses calls Israel "a perverse and crooked generation" with a blemish "not his sons" (De 32:5). Proverbs notes the self-deceived generation that is "pure in their own eyes, and [yet] are not washed from their filthiness" (Pr 30:12). Jesus uses the same idiom: "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you⁺, and bear with you⁺?" (Lu 9:41). Sirach calls the children of the wicked "a disgusting offspring... a godless sprout" (Sir 41:5).
Works, Partakers, and Witnesses of Evil
The works of evil are catalogued plainly. "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]: whoring, impurity, sexual depravity" (Ga 5:19); "where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile action" (Jas 3:16); the world hates Jesus "because I testify of it, that its works are evil" (Jn 7:7); the unbelieving "do the works of your⁺ father" (Jn 8:41); Sirach's swindler "is as one gathering stones for his burial mound" (Sir 21:8). To be a "partaker" of these is to share their guilt: Paul forbids the cup of demons alongside the cup of the Lord (1Co 10:21); John forbids extending hospitality to a teacher of error, "for he who gives him greeting shares in his evil works" (2Jn 1:11); the saints are told "don't be⁺ partakers with them" (Ep 5:7); Revelation's voice from heaven commands withdrawal — "come forth, my people, out of her, that you⁺ have no fellowship with her sins, and that you⁺ do not receive of her plagues" (Re 18:4). Lot, by contrast, is the type of the witness who refuses to share even when he cannot escape the proximity: "for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed [his] righteous soul from day to day with [their] lawless deeds" (2Pe 2:8).
Putting Evil Away
Deuteronomy's recurring imperative is to remove the agent of evil: "so you will put away the evil from the midst of you" (De 13:5; De 17:7; De 19:19; De 21:21; De 22:21; De 24:7). 1 Maccabees applies the same principle to Simon — he "took away every unjust and wicked man" (1Ma 14:14). Paul transfers the imperative to the church's own discipline: "put away the wicked man from among yourselves" (1Co 5:13). Job presents the personal counterpart: "If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up, If you put away unrighteousness far from your tents" (Job 22:23). Sirach gathers the inward and outward sides into a single counsel — "Do not do evil to yourself; And evil will not overtake you" (Sir 7:1); "Be afraid of evil, for it brings forth evil. Why should you take a blemish forever?" (Sir 11:33); "Turn to the Lord and forsake sins" (Sir 17:25); "Turn to the Most High, and turn away from iniquity, And vehemently hate the disgusting thing" (Sir 17:26).
Repressing Evil and Expressing Good
Removal is paired with two parallel disciplines: an inward repression of evil thought and desire, and an active expression of good. Paul's program is to "put to death therefore your⁺ members which are on the earth: whoring, impurity, immoral sexual passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry" (Cl 3:5), and to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2Co 10:5). John adds the affective root: "Don't love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1Jn 2:15). David models the watch on speech and conduct: "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I don't sin with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me" (Ps 39:1). The corresponding positive is the call to deny self and follow Christ (Lu 9:23), to "give, and it will be given to you⁺" (Lu 6:38), to "be⁺ first... slave of all" (Mr 10:44), to substitute thanksgiving for anxiety (Php 4:6), and to serve and praise Yahweh openly (Ps 100:2; Ps 145:11; Ps 147:1).
Returning Good for Evil
The interior repression takes its sharpest external form when the believer is wronged. The negative rule is absolute: "see that none render to anyone evil for evil; but always follow after that which is good, both one toward another, and toward all" (1Th 5:15). The positive rule is equally strong: "love your⁺ enemies, do good to those who hate you⁺" (Lu 6:27); "love your⁺ enemies, and do [them] good, and lend, never despairing... for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil" (Lu 6:35); "if your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink" (Pr 25:21-22; cf. Ro 12:20); even the donkey of the personal enemy must be helped up (Ex 23:5). The positive instances accumulate: Joseph weeps over his brothers (Ge 45:15); Moses prays for Miriam's healing (Nu 12:13); David in the cave restrains his hand from Saul and is acknowledged as "more righteous than I; for you have rendered to me good, whereas I have rendered to you evil" (1Sa 24:17; cf. 1Sa 26:11); David fasts for his enemies in their sickness (Ps 35:13); Elisha feeds the captured Aramean army instead of striking it (2Ki 6:22); Jesus heals the slave of the high priest at his own arrest (Lu 22:51); the apostles "being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure" (1Co 4:12); the Diognetan Christians, the same — "they are reviled, and bless; they are shamefully treated, and render honor" (Gr 5:15), and "though the flesh hates the soul, the soul loves the flesh and all its members; and Christians love those who hate them" (Gr 6:6). The opposite is named for what it is: a "great treachery" (1Ma 16:17).
The Appearance of Evil
Beyond the inward repression and the outward kindness, Scripture imposes a third discipline on the believer's freedom: the believer must avoid not only what is evil but what looks like evil to a watching conscience. Paul's basic instruction is "abstain from every form of evil" (1Th 5:22), expanded into the social register as the charge to "walk becomingly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing" (1Th 4:11-12). Two ranges of cases follow.
The first is idol meat. The Corinthian who knows that an idol is nothing is nevertheless not free to eat it openly, because the weaker brother who sees him will be emboldened to violate his own conscience: "take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours⁺ become a stumbling block to the weak... For through your knowledge he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died... if meat causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh forevermore" (1Co 8:9, 11, 13). The same logic governs the dinner-party rule of 1Co 10:28-33 — eat what is set before you unless someone identifies it as sacrificed, and then refuse "for the sake of him who showed it and of conscience" (1Co 10:28); "give no occasion of stumbling, either to Jews, or to Greeks, or to the church of God" (1Co 10:32). Paul generalizes the principle in Romans 14: "don't let then your⁺ good be evil spoken of" (Ro 14:16); "it is evil for that man who eats with offense" (Ro 14:20); "it is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor [to do anything] by which your brother stumbles" (Ro 14:21).
The second range is the apostle's own livelihood. Although the law itself secures a missionary's right to material support (1Co 9:7-14), Paul refuses that right in Corinth lest it appear as preaching for pay: "we did not use this right; but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the good news of Christ" (1Co 9:12); "I have used none of these things... [it was] good for me rather to die, than that any man should make my glorying void" (1Co 9:15); "that, when I preach the good news, I may make the good news without charge, so as not to use to the full my right in the good news" (1Co 9:18). The shape of the discipline is the same in both cases: a lawful liberty is restrained because the visible act would carry the wrong message about the gospel or about a brother.