2 Samuel 14:20

¹⁷Then your servant said, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king bring rest; for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad. May the LORD, your God, be with you.’”

²⁷He has slandered your servant to my lord the king, but my lord the king is as an angel of God. Therefore do what is good in your eyes.

²⁸A lying tongue hates those it hurts; and a flattering mouth works ruin.

⁵A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.

²³When David inquired of the LORD, he said, “You shall not go up. Circle around behind them, and attack them in front of the mulberry trees.

⁵for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

²¹Please don’t let me respect any man’s person, neither will I give flattering titles to any man. ²²For I don’t know how to give flattering titles, or else my Maker would soon take me away.

¹Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ²But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know.

¹⁶“Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep? ¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? ¹⁸Have you comprehended the earth in its width? Declare, if you know it all. ¹⁹“What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place, ²⁰that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the paths to its house? ²¹Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! ²²Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, ²³which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? ²⁴By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth? ²⁵Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or the path for the thunderstorm, ²⁶to cause it to rain on a land where there is no man, on the wilderness, in which there is no man, ²⁷to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to grow? ²⁸Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew? ²⁹Whose womb did the ice come out of? Who has given birth to the gray frost of the sky? ³⁰The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen. ³¹“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion? ³²Can you lead the constellations out in their season? Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs? ³³Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish its dominion over the earth? ³⁴“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover you? ³⁵Can you send out lightnings, that they may go? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? ³⁶Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the mind? ³⁷Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the containers of the sky, ³⁸when the dust runs into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together? ³⁹“Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, ⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens, and lie in wait in the thicket? ⁴¹Who provides for the raven his prey, when his young ones cry to God, and wander for lack of food?