King James Bible
"All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits."
This describes humanity's tendency toward self-justification—people naturally view their actions and motives as pure or reasonable. The Hebrew word for "clean" (זַךְ) implies moral purity, highlighting how self-deception blinds us to our own faults. In contrast to human self-assessment, God examines the inner person with perfect accuracy. The metaphor of weighing spirits draws from ancient marketplace scales, emphasizing that God's judgment penetrates beyond external actions to evaluate true motivations and character.