These two verses are the continuation of father’s words to his son about not listening to “sinful men” (:10). Our verses are part of the invitation of those men to go after “innocent” and “harmless” folks (:11).
Here, at the heart of their message, is their intent against their victims – “swallow them alive” and “get all sorts of valuable things and fill our houses.”
No ambiguity here! These are people with an agenda to hurt others and steal their stuff for themselves. They’re not even pretending to be “Robin Hood” – stealing from the rich to give to the poor!
I suppose the message of these verses for us today is to know that there are people like this out there. While some of them may clean up well, talk nice and not carry weapons – they still have no good will toward us.
So we need to be smart enough to recognize them as they show up in our world. And, like in these verses, we need to teach our children what to and not to do.
Yet, there’s one more lesson here…At Helping Up Mission we have quite a few guys who use to be those “sinful men.” But Jesus touched them and that’s not who they are anymore!
People do change!