“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies and one who sows discord among brothers.”
-Proverbs 6:16–19
Whenever we see a list like this one here in Proverbs 6:16–19, I think it’s really good to pause and just pray through the list and ask God to help us to see these things for what they are, to hate them. That’s the language here. They’re an abomination to him. He hates these things, so to hate these things like he hates them and to run from them in our lives, that God would purify us and sanctify us so that none of these things characterize our hearts and our minds and our actions. Let’s just pray through the list.
Let us ask God to help us to hate what He hates. May God purify and sanctify us so that none of these things characterize our lives.
A Prayer for Purification
God, we pray right now that you would keep us from haughty eyes. God, please keep us from pride, from looking out for ourselves. We pray for humility. Please, oh God, give us humble eyes, not haughty eyes. We pray for humble eyes today. Keep us, we pray, from a lying tongue. Lord, help us to speak truth always, always. God, we pray that when we’re pressed into a moment and we’re tempted for self-preservation or any motive to lie, God we pray you would help us to speak truth.
God, we pray that our words would be trustworthy, honoring to you and honoring to others. Lord, we pray you would keep us from shedding innocent blood, from hurting the innocent in any way. God we pray that you would give us kindness, that you would give us gentleness, that you would guard us from anger that leads to hurting with our words, hurting with our actions, hurting with our attitude even. God, please keep us from a heart that devises wicked plans.
Knowing What God Hates in Proverbs 6:16–19 Helps Us Better Understand What to Run From
God, we pray that our hearts would devise good plans, pure plans, right plans, that our hearts would desire and devise that which is good. God, please keep us from making haste to run to evil. Cause our feet, we pray, to run to good, to run to good, to run away from evil. God, help us not to flirt with, toy with, rationalize with sin. Help us to run from it and make haste to run to goodness and holiness. God, keep us, we pray, from being false witnesses who breathe out lies.
Make us true witnesses who breathe out truth. We pray for integrity, and Father we pray that you would keep us from sowing discord among brothers and sisters. Lord, make us peacemakers. Help us to promote unity. In a John 17 kind of way, just as Jesus, you and the Father are one, help us to promote that kind of oneness in the church.
Oh God, we pray for your help in all these ways. Help us to hate all these things in Proverbs 6:16–19. May they be an abomination to us, and may they not characterize our lives. By your grace, free us from these things, to walk in your ways, in your wisdom. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
