But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
Parallel translations
- WEB But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
- BSB But if you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another.
- NKJV But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!
- NASB But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
- NLT But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.
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
If they bite and devour one another, they risk destroying the whole community. Selfish strife, the opposite of love, is mutually ruinous.
Overview
Paul warns that the Galatians' conflicts, perhaps fueled by the legalism controversy, threaten to consume them like wild animals tearing at each other. This vividly contrasts with the loving service of verse 13. The verse cautions that abandoning love for quarreling endangers the very life of the church.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- 1 Cor 3:3For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
- Jas 3:14But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
- Gal 5:26Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
- 2 Cor 11:20For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face.
- 2 Cor 12:20For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults:
- 1 Cor 6:6–8But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
- Isa 9:20–21And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:
- Isa 11:13The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
- Isa 11:5–9And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
- Phil 3:2Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.
- 2 Sam 2:26–27Then Abner called to Joab, and said, Shall the sword devour for ever? knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end? how long shall it be then, ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren?
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Christ at the center
Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the law's curse, that we might receive the Spirit and be sons — justified by faith in him, not by works.
How Galatians 5:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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