Why does this matter? Unless you act on these attitudes, how could they be called sin? To start, covetousness is listed among the Ten Commandments. It is number ten (Exodus 20:17): “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's” (emphasis added). Though there is no Old Testament death penalty for this sin, the New Testament is clear about how envy is a work of the flesh — meaning, something that leads to death and not to eternal life.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,  idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. (Galatians 5:19-21, emphasis added).

Romans 1:28-32 is even more sobering. Envy is listed as one of the sins of the unrighteous who suppress the truth and have been given over to a debased mind.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (emphasis added).

It is startling to see envy and covetousness listed in these passages, isn’t it? What hope do we have when confronted by the ugliness of our hearts? Two bright passages are found in Titus and 1 Peter. They echo these “vice lists” but give us immediate perspective on how to change.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.  But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3-7, emphasis added).