Poison

Poison in Scripture refers chiefly to the venom of serpents and other creatures. The Song of Moses describes the serpents of the wilderness as having the "poison of asps" (Deut. 32:33). Job laments that the Almighty's arrows carry poison that his spirit drinks (Job 6:4). The deceit of the wicked is compared to "the poison of asps" behind their lips (Ps. 58:4; 140:3), a passage Paul cites in his indictment of universal human sin (Rom. 3:13). In the sign given to Mark's missionaries, believers would be unharmed by drinking deadly poison (Mark 16:18). James condemns the tongue as "full of deadly poison" (Jas. 3:8), unable to be tamed by human effort.