Eschew Evil

²“There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” (Job 1:1). I was looking up the definition and etymology of the word “eschew,” which in its modern usage means to avoid something, especially for moral reasons. It comes from the Old High German word “sciuhen.” Sciuhen has two meanings closely related to fear. It can mean to be afraid of something, which is why this word is also the root of the English word “shy.” But it can also mean to frighten off or to scare something. The reason that I bring this up is that if we are to eschew evil, we can take two different approaches. Either we can be terrified of evil and avoid it as best we can. Or we can remember that we are children of the most high God and we have Jesus Christ to fight our battles and we can scare the hell right out of the devil and his minions. That's what Job did. Satan was terrified of Job. You know, normally, someone starts to get rich and wealthy and the pride cycle kicks in and they forget the Lord and Satan can kick back and relax and tuck into a heaping bowl of schadenfreude and cheer as the mighty fall from grace. But Job didn't do that. Even though the Lord blessed Him beyond measure, Job kept his integrity. This was bad for Satan and his propaganda machine. He can't have someone as rich as Job and apparently immune to pride. The righteousness of Job scared Satan. That's why he threw everything he had at him. Took away all of his worldly things, his children, even his health. His wife abandoned him. His friends criticized and mocked him. But still, Job eschewed evil and frightened off the devil himself. To give one more example from the scriptures, here is that Mormon wrote about Captain Moroni: “Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.” (Alma 48:17). Here was another man who eschewed evil. We don't have to be afraid of evil. Evil needs to be afraid of us. David did not fear Goliath, but the Philistines sure feared David after he slew Goliath. Esther would not be intimidated by Haman, but all of Haman’s people learned to fear Esther. Eschewing evil because we are frightened is perhaps a good first step, but when we truly go forth in the strength of the Lord, we will not have to avoid evil because evil will be so frightened that it will avoid us.