What some will pay for a moment’s reckless folly is recorded again and again in the Book of Ages. Do you think these people got their “money’s worth?”

1. Adam and Eve, for one bit of luscious fruit when they may not have been hungry, brought sin, suffering, shame, and death upon themselves and the human race (Genesis 3).

2. Lot’s wife, revealing her longing for the things that pertain to earth, took one look back at Sodom and became a pillar of salt (Genesis 19).

3. Esau, to satisfy one day’s fleshly appetite, lightly esteemed his birthright and forfeited his right to the ancestry of Christ (Genesis 25).

4. Achan, for a garment he could not wear, and silver and gold he could not spend, paid with all his possessions, his family, and his life (Joshua 7).

5. Samson, for the caress of a hypocritical woman, lost his eyes, and finally his life (Judges 16).

6. David, to enjoy another man’s wife, hands to posterity a tale of his life with adultery, shame, and tears, boldly written for all to read (2 Samuel 11).

7. Ahab, coveting another’s little vineyard, permitted his wife to have its owner killed, claimed it for his own, and heard his own funeral preached in these words, “In the place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall the dogs lick thy blood, even thine” (I Kings 21).

– Selected