But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.
Parallel translations
- WEB But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
- KJV But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of 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.
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 you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?
- Jas 3:14But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and don’t lie against the truth.
- Gal 5:26Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
- 2 Cor 11:20For you bear with a man, if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, if he strikes you on the face.
- 2 Cor 12:20For I am afraid that by any means, when I come, I might find you not the way I want to, and that I might be found by you as you don’t desire; that by any means there would be strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, whisperings, proud thoughts, riots;
- 1 Cor 6:6–8But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers!
- Isa 9:20–21One will devour on the right hand, and be hungry; and he will eat on the left hand, and they will not be satisfied. Everyone will eat the flesh of his own arm:
- Isa 11:13The envy also of Ephraim will depart, and those who persecute Judah will be cut off. Ephraim won’t envy Judah, and Judah won’t persecute Ephraim.
- Isa 11:5–9Righteousness will be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his waist.
- Phil 3:2Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision.
- 2 Sam 2:26–27Then Abner called to Joab, and said, “Shall the sword devour forever? Don’t you know that it will be bitterness in the latter end? How long will it be then, before you ask the people to return from following their brothers?”
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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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