Verse 10. The connection of the clauses is--to speak feignedly and to speak rashly are both alike dangerous: to do the former hurts others, to do the latter hurts oneself. When we avoid _cunning_ and _feigned speaking,_ we are not to run into the opposite extremes of _prating folly._--_Fausset._ The one shuts his eye to conceal his subtlety, the other opens his mouth to declare his folly. The one winketh, but sayeth nothing; the other says too much, but thinketh not what he says. The one giveth sorrow to the deceived in his malicious bounty; the other taketh a fall from the superfluous bounty of his own words.--_Jermin._ _MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 12. LOVE AND HATRED. The lawfulness or unlawfulness of hatred and strife depends upon the subject or occasion of such feeling. God hates sin, and we know that this hatred is the fruit of one of His highest attributes. The Divine and Incarnate Son of God foretold that He had not "come to send peace on earth, but a sword" (Matt. x. 34), and therefore even He was an occasion of strife because He was a hater of sin. There is then a holy as well as a wicked hatred, a lawful as well as an unlawful strife. But the hatred of the text being placed in contrast with love is evidently the malicious hatred of a wicked man. +I. The hatred of the wicked is+--1. _Insatiable._ It has been said that those who hate have first injured. This is doubtless true, but there must have been some amount of hatred to prompt the injury. But after the injury has been inflicted, the hatred is not diminished, but is generally increased. Herodias prevailed upon Herod to put John the Baptist into prison, but this did not lessen her malice. It was such a devouring flame as could be quenched by nothing but his blood. The pain which conscience inflicts upon him who has injured another is put to the account of the injured person, and goes to increase the bitterness of the anger against him. 2. _It is generally impartial._ Wicked men generally begin by hating good men, but they come in time to a habit of hating bad men too. The blind man will be as likely to strike his friend as his foe. Hatred is blind, and those who begin by hating those whom they consider their enemies, generally end by hating their so-called friends.