The Sin of Profanity
Leviticus 24:10-16
And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel…


There is not a sin in all the catalogue that is so often peremptorily and suddenly punished in this world as the sin of profanity. There is not a city or a village but can give an illustration of a man struck down at the moment of inprecation. At New Brunswick, U.S., just before I went there as a student, this occurrence took place in front of the college. On the rail-track a man had uttered a horrible oath. He saw not that the rail-train was coming. The locomotive struck him and instantly dashed his life out. The peculiarity of the circumstance was that the physicians examining his body found hardly a bruise, except that his tongue was cut out! There was no mystery about it. He cursed God and died. In Scotland a club assembled every week for purposes of wickedness, and there was a competition as to which could use the most profane oath, and the man who succeeded was to be president of the club. The competition went on. A man uttered an oath which confounded all his comrades, and he was made president of the club. His tongue began to swell, and it protruded from the mouth, and he could not draw it in, and he died, and the physicians said, "This is the strangest thing we ever saw: we never saw any account in the books like unto it: we cannot understand it." I understand it. He cursed God and died. At Catskill, N.Y., a group of men stood in a blacksmith's shop during a violent thunderstorm. There came a crash of thunder and some of the men trembled. One man said, "Why, I don't see what you are afraid of. I am not afraid to go out in front of the shop and defy the Almighty. I am not afraid of the lightning." And he laid a wager on the subject, and he went out and shook his fist at the heavens, crying, "Strike, if you dare!" and instantly he fell under a bolt. What destroyed him? Any mystery about it? Oh, no; he cursed God and died. Oh, my brother, God will not allow this sin to go unpunished. There are styles of writing with manifold sheets, so that a man writing on one leaf writes clear through ten, fifteen, or twenty sheets; and so every profanity we utter goes right down through the leaves of the book of God's remembrance.

(T. De Witt Talmage.).



Parallel Verses
KJV: And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp;

WEB: The son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and the son of the Israelite woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp.




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