If you are jealous of another person you want what they have. You want their material possessions, their good looks or their advantages. You want their happiness, their prosperity or their success.

Envy, however, both takes jealousy to a deeper level and originates from a deeper level. When we become envious we not only want what the other person has, but we hate them for having it. Envy is a an insidious cancer that lurks within the soul. The envious person becomes obsessed with the happiness, success or prosperity of the other person and becomes so sick that the envious person eventually longs for the other person’s happiness to be destroyed.

Is envy deadly? Of course. In one of the first human stories, God accepted Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s, so Cain—envious of his brother’s acceptance by God—rose up and killed his own brother. This tragic story at the very beginning of the Bible reminds us that envy is one of the root sins. It originated in the disobedience of our first parents and manifested in their son, then out of envy many other sins spring forth.

Envy is an insatiable desire like lust, greed and gluttony. Envy can therefore be the root out of which springs theft, cheating, adultery and murder. Out of envy we reach out to take what is not ours: another’s property, another’s wealth, another’s wife, another’s life.