—1:18–19— God is love (1 Jn. 4:8), which is why He will not stand idly by while evil consumes His creation. Note the objects of His wrath. He burns against “ungodliness” and “unrighteousness,” two terms that need defining. “Ungodliness” comes from the Greek word asebeia [763]. The term is related to the verb sebomai [4576], which originally meant “to fall back before” or “to shrink from,” as one would do in the presence of a deity. By the time of Paul, the common understanding was “to reverence”