12 If you are wise, you are wise for your own benefit;
if you mock, you alone will bear the consequences.” (Proverbs 9:12 CSB)

I remember when I was a kid and would witness other kids mocking someone. I did not have much of a stomach for it then and even less so now.

Luckily, in civil society we do not run into it very much. Oh, it exist in more subtle ways now, but less so I think. Where it does exist, it is typically not open or blatant. No, it exist in the background, behind people’s back.

I think that is why today’s scripture is so relevant even in civil society. We reap what we sow. The cutting remarks behind another’s back or undermining typically comes back around on the mocker in the long run. They alone bear the consequences.

Like we have forever heard from our mothers, “if you don’t have something good to say, say nothing at all.”