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Friday, July 4th, 2025
the Week of Proper 8 / Ordinary 13
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Read the Bible

Green's Literal Translation

Proverbs 4:17

For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Malice;   Sin;   Wine;   Young Men;   Thompson Chain Reference - Corruption;   Nation, the;   Violence;   World, the;   The Topic Concordance - Evil;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Bread;   Wine;  

Dictionaries:

- Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Drink;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Bread;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Proverbs, Book of;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Proverbs book of;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Eat;  

Encyclopedias:

- The Jewish Encyclopedia - Wine;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for February 4;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
They eat the bread of wickednessand drink the wine of violence.
Hebrew Names Version
For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence.
King James Version
For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
English Standard Version
For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
New Century Version
They feast on wickedness and cruelty as if they were eating bread and drinking wine.
New English Translation
For they eat bread gained from wickedness and drink wine obtained from violence.
Amplified Bible
For they eat the bread of wickedness And drink the wine of violence.
New American Standard Bible
For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence.
World English Bible
For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence.
Geneva Bible (1587)
For they eate the breade of wickednesse, and drinke the wine of violence.
Legacy Standard Bible
For they eat the bread of wickednessAnd drink the wine of violence.
Berean Standard Bible
since they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
Contemporary English Version
Their food and drink are violence and cruelty.
Complete Jewish Bible
For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
Darby Translation
For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
Easy-to-Read Version
Evil and violence are their food and drink.
George Lamsa Translation
For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
Good News Translation
Wickedness and violence are like food and drink to them.
Lexham English Bible
For they ate the bread of wickedness, and they drank the wine of violence.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For they eate the bred of wickednesse, and drike the wyne of robbery.
American Standard Version
For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence.
Bible in Basic English
The bread of evil-doing is their food, the wine of violent acts their drink.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
King James Version (1611)
For they eate the bread of wickednesse, and drinke the wine of violence.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
For they eate the bread of wickednes, and drinke the wine of robberie.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For these live upon the bread of ungodliness, and are drunken with wine of transgression.
English Revised Version
For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thei eten the breed of vnpite, and drinken the wyn of wickidnesse.
Update Bible Version
For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence.
Webster's Bible Translation
For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
New King James Version
For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence.
New Living Translation
They eat the food of wickedness and drink the wine of violence!
New Life Bible
For they eat the bread of sin, and drink the wine of wrong-doing.
New Revised Standard
For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For they consume bread gotten by lawlessness, and, wine obtained by violence, they drink.
Douay-Rheims Bible
They eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of iniquity.
Revised Standard Version
For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
Young's Literal Translation
For they have eaten bread of wickedness, And wine of violence they drink.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
For they eat the bread of wickedness And drink the wine of violence.

Contextual Overview

14 Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not go in the way of evildoers. 15 Avoid it, do not pass by it; turn from it and pass on. 16 For they do not sleep if they have done no evil, and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall. 17 For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence. 18 But the path of the just is as a bright light going on and shining till the day is established. 19 The way of the wicked is as darkness; they do not know at what they stumble.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Proverbs 9:17, Proverbs 20:17, Job 24:5, Job 24:6, Psalms 14:4, Jeremiah 5:26-28, Ezekiel 22:25-29, Amos 8:4-6, Micah 3:5, Micah 6:12, Zephaniah 3:3, Matthew 23:14, James 5:4, James 5:5

Reciprocal: Genesis 27:42 - comfort himself 1 Samuel 20:24 - the king 1 Kings 21:15 - Arise Job 34:7 - General Psalms 73:6 - violence Proverbs 13:2 - the soul Isaiah 57:20 - like Micah 7:3 - do

Cross-References

Genesis 4:4
And Abel brought, he also, from the firstlings of his flocks, even from their fat. And Jehovah looked to Abel and to his offering.
Genesis 4:11
And now you are cursed more than the ground which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
Genesis 5:18
And Jared lived one hundred and sixty two years and fathered Enoch.
Genesis 5:22
And Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he fathered Methuselah. And he fathered sons and daughters.
Genesis 11:4
And they said, Come, let us build a city and a tower with its head in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves, that we not be scattered on the face of all the earth.
2 Samuel 18:18
And during his lifetime Absalom had taken and set up for himself a standing-pillar, which is in the King's Valley. For he said, I have no son to cause my name to be remembered. And he called the standing pillar by his name and it is calledAbsalom's Monument to this day.
Psalms 49:11
Their inward thought is that their houses shall last forever, their dwelling-places to all generations; they call lands after their own names.
Daniel 4:30
The king spoke and said, Is this not great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For they eat the bread of wickedness,.... Either that is gotten by wicked and unlawful means, or wickedness itself is bread unto them; it is that to their minds as bread is to their bodies; they feed upon it with as much eagerness, appetite, gust, and pleasure; it is a sweet morsel to them; it is meat, drink, sleep, and everything to them; they take the highest satisfaction and the utmost delight in it;

and drink the wine of violence: either that which is obtained by rapine and violence; or they as greedily commit such acts of oppression and injury as a man drinks a glass of wine; they do not drink up iniquity like water only, but even like wine, the most generous and delicious. Wherefore all society with such men should be avoided.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The counsel which has come to him, in substance, from his father. Compare it with 2 Samuel 23:2 etc.; 1 Chronicles 28:9; 1 Chronicles 29:17; Psalms 15:1-5; Psalms 24:1-10; Psalms 37:0.

Proverbs 4:7

Or, “The beginning of wisdom is - get wisdom.” To seek is to find, to desire is to obtain.

Proverbs 4:12

The ever-recurring parable of the journey of life. In the way of wisdom the path is clear and open, obstacles disappear; in the quickest activity (“when thou runnest”) there is no risk of falling.

Proverbs 4:13

She is thy life - Another parallel between personified Wisdom in this book and the Incarnate Wisdom in John 1:4.

Proverbs 4:16

A fearful stage of debasement. Sin is the condition without which there can be no repose.

Proverbs 4:17

i. e., Bread and wine gained by unjust deeds. Compare Amos 2:8. A less probable interpretation is, “They eat wickedness as bread, and drink violence as wine.” Compare Job 15:16; Job 34:7.

Proverbs 4:18

Shining ... shineth - The two Hebrew words are different; the first having the sense of bright or clear. The beauty of a cloudless sunshine growing on, shining as it goes, to the full and perfect day, is chosen as the fittest figure of the ever increasing brightness of the good man’s life. Compare the marginal reference.

Proverbs 4:19

Compare our Lord’s teaching John 11:10; John 12:35.

Proverbs 4:20

The teacher speaks again in his own person.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Proverbs 4:17. For they eat the bread of wickedness — By privately stealing.

And drink the wine of violence. — By highway robbery.


 
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