Why? Because – in the extreme – it might lead to this: Jealous butcher ‘killed mom, 4 kids because they had too much.’
What a horrible tragedy!

An illegal Chinese immigrant, bitter over his failure to achieve the American dream, repaid his cousin’s kindness by butchering the man’s wife and four young children, cops said Sunday.
 
Mingdong Chen, 25, showed no remorse when he confessed to slaughtering the family that allowed him to live in their Brooklyn apartment and admitted that he committed the atrocity because he envied their way of life, a police source told The Post.

[Source: New York Post]

(Yes, I understand the guy was nuts. He would have to be. But I contend it was the envy, the coveting, the jealousy, that drove him to that point.)

Thou shall not covet is the last of God’s commandments – but certainly not the least. If Eve hadn’t been jealous of God’s omniscience she wouldn’t have been susceptible to Satan’s deceit… that apple wouldn’t have been so tempting… and everything might have been different…
 
Or not. Jealousy is such a ubiquitous human emotion, none of us is entirely immune to it.
 
And or course, these days it’s everywhere in our culture. Facebook thrives on it. Progressive politicians agitate for class envy.
Our local newspaper recently started a new feature called “Michigan House Envy.” Each week they profile a gorgeous home listed for sale somewhere in the state.
Now, I have to admit this is maybe the only section of the paper I look forward to reading – it’s kind of fun to dream about how the “other half” lives.
 
Last Sunday’s “mansion” was a $16 million showplace, with indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts, even a putting green, with 265 feet of frontage on Lake St. Clair. Wow!
 

 
Yeah. It’s all too easy to get caught up in that kind of thinking. But in our rational moments we realize it’s completely unrealistic – not to mention destructive.

 
Great authors like Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare understood the destructive nature of jealousy; it was a frequent theme in their works. Things never ended well for characters who succumbed to its snares. Shakespeare, especially, favored the vice as a powerful motivator for his most memorable dramas. His Othello became so enraged with jealousy that he killed Desdemona, the object of his desire, and then he killed himself.
 
These literary giants and others like them understood human nature. And because they did, they also understood that God isn’t some killjoy who made up a bunch of rules to impose on His creatures just to prevent us from having fun. Jealousy can make us miserable, ruin relationships, distract us from what’s really important and prevent us from truly enjoying life.
When it becomes obsessive, jealousy can even kill.