Sirach 7:1-3. "Do no evil, and evil will never befall you. Stay away from wrong and it will stay away from you." If you do not "sew the furrows of Injustice"  you will not "reap a sevenfold crop." What is the difference between evil and bad things? There is a difference, because bad things happen to all of us but not because we are pursuing evil. I think bad things are the sufferings and trials that we all must go through to prepare ourselves and our souls for eternal life. They are like a refining fire, they cleanse us of our sins and point us in the right direction.

But evil is different. Evil is a choice to do wrong - a giving over of ourselves to the force opposed to God - the devil. Just as God lavishes blessings upon us when we try to do good, especially when we do good in the face of our sufferings, evil rewards us with greater and greater evil when we pursue it, especially when we choose it as a result of our sufferings, rather than choosing to try to do good. It is like a reward from the devil for turning from God. All he has to give is evil, so that's what he gives. In fact, though, he doesn't even really have that, he just has his own hatred and sin. The evil we get as a "payment" for evil that we do is the direct result of what we have done. Evil begets evil.

We bring evil on ourselves, as Sirach notes here, we can't really blame the devil or God. God will only ever give us good things and the devil has nothing to give, so any evil "crops" we grow are the result of the seeds of evil that we have planted. I think we are reaping a lot of the crops that we have planted over the last many decades. I hope that, at the very least, more people start to see the evil that we have grown, and turned towards good instead.