“‘“Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
Parallel translations
- KJV Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
- BSB Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and complacent; they did not help the poor and needy.
- NKJV Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
- NASB Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, plenty of food, and carefree ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.
- NLT Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Sodom's sin included pride, gluttonous ease, and neglect of the poor and needy. Her iniquity was more than the sin commonly associated with her name.
Overview
This important verse defines Sodom's guilt as arrogant complacency: 'pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease,' coupled with failure to help the poor. It warns that comfort and self-sufficiency breed callousness and rebellion against God. Scripture thus presses the well-fed and secure to remember mercy and humility, lest prosperity become a path to ruin.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 34
- Ezek 28:2Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the middle of the seas; yet you are man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God —
- Ps 138:6For though Yahweh is high, yet he looks after the lowly; but the proud, he knows from afar.
- Gen 13:10Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well-watered everywhere, before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar.
- Luke 12:16–20He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man produced abundantly.
- Prov 18:12Before destruction the heart of man is proud, but before honor is humility.
- Ezek 18:12has wronged the poor and needy, has taken by robbery, has not restored the pledge, and has lifted up his eyes to the idols, has committed abomination,
- Ezek 18:16neither has wronged any, has not taken anything to pledge, neither has taken by robbery, but has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment;
- Isa 3:9The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought disaster upon themselves.
- Dan 5:23but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which don’t see, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified.
- 1 Pet 5:5Likewise, you younger ones, be subject to the elder. Yes, all of you clothe yourselves with humility, to subject yourselves to one another; for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
- Gen 19:9They said, “Stand back!” Then they said, “This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now will we deal worse with you, than with them!” They pressed hard on the man Lot, and came near to break the door.
- Prov 21:13Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he will also cry out, but shall not be heard.
- Amos 5:11–12Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
- Luke 17:28Likewise, even as it was in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built;
- Ezek 28:9Will you yet say before him who kills you, I am God? but you are man, and not God, in the hand of him who wounds you.
- Luke 16:19–21“Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.
- Ezek 28:17Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your brightness: I have cast you to the ground; I have laid you before kings, that they may see you.
- Dan 4:30The king spoke and said, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?
- Isa 3:14–15Yahweh will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and their leaders: “It is you who have eaten up the vineyard. The plunder of the poor is in your houses.
- Mic 3:2–4You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;
- Deut 32:15But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation.
- Prov 21:4A high look, and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin.
- Obad 1:3The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high, who says in his heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’
- Prov 16:5Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to Yahweh: they shall certainly not be unpunished.
- Isa 16:6We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud; even of his arrogance, his pride, and his wrath. His boastings are nothing.
- Prov 16:18Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
- Amos 8:4–6Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,
- Ezek 18:7and has not wronged any, but has restored to the debtor his pledge, has taken nothing by robbery, has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment;
- Isa 22:13–14and behold, joy and gladness, killing cattle and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”
- Ezek 29:3Speak and say, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the middle of his rivers, that has said, ‘My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.’
- Gen 18:20Yahweh said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous,
- Luke 21:34“So be careful, or your hearts will be loaded down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day will come on you suddenly.
- Amos 6:3–6Those who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;
- Dan 4:37Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.
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