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Here we have a proverb that exhorts us to a holy life. As we live our new life in the Christian walk our focus should be on the spiritual and away from envying the material things in life. To envy evildoers is just looking at God's way of redemption in a small picture. We must look at the complete story told to us in God's word and realize the end of the wicked contrasted with that of the righteous
"Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." - Psalm 73:1-3.
In Psalm 73, the Psalmist compares envying the wicked to one slipping. The remedy to overcoming the desires of the material world is to stay close to the holy Bible. God has given us His word as counsel and He is true therefore in the long run the believer can be assured that if God has saved them, He will likewise reward them; not for any of their own merits but to the glory of His divine providence. The saving faith of Christ working in the believer assures them of a satisfied soul, never is drought:
"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." (Isaiah 58:6-11).
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