Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved: but he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once.
Whoever lives in uprightness will be delivered in the end, while whoever twists his course into crookedness will collapse suddenly and completely. Safety belongs to the straight path, and ruin belongs to the perverse path, with no middle outcome between them.
To walk uprightly is to obey God's commandments conscientiously, to believe what He has promised, and to rely on His mercy made available through Christ. Mere profession of belief does not constitute such uprightness, nor do outward religious performances or even prayers, when justice, truth, and mercy are disregarded and sin is not forsaken. Those who plead excuses for disobedience cheat only themselves, and those who take stubbornness of heart and bold self-assurance for genuine faith mistake the very nature of faith. Such self-deception leaves a person still crooked in conduct and therefore exposed to the sudden fall pronounced against the perverse.
Whoever lives in uprightness will be delivered in the end, while whoever twists his course into crookedness will collapse suddenly and completely. Safety belongs to the straight path, and ruin belongs to the perverse path, with no middle outcome between them.
To walk uprightly is to obey God's commandments conscientiously, to believe what He has promised, and to rely on His mercy made available through Christ. Mere profession of belief does not constitute such uprightness, nor do outward religious performances or even prayers, when justice, truth, and mercy are disregarded and sin is not forsaken. Those who plead excuses for disobedience cheat only themselves, and those who take stubbornness of heart and bold self-assurance for genuine faith mistake the very nature of faith. Such self-deception leaves a person still crooked in conduct and therefore exposed to the sudden fall pronounced against the perverse.