He who sows iniquity will reap sorrow, And the rod of his anger will fail.
Parallel translations
- WEB He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed.
- KJV He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail.
- BSB He who sows injustice will reap disaster, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed.
- NASB One who sows injustice will reap disaster, And the rod of his fury will perish.
- NLT Those who plant injustice will harvest disaster, and their reign of terror will come to an end.
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
Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity, and his angry power will fail. It matters because evil and oppression bring their own downfall.
Overview
The principle of sowing and reaping applies to wickedness — injustice yields trouble, and the oppressor's furious might collapses (Galatians 6:7-8; Job 4:8). God's moral order ensures that evil rebounds on the evildoer. The verse warns against injustice and assures that oppression will not finally prevail.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Gal 6:7–8Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
- Job 4:8According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.
- Ps 125:3For the scepter of wickedness won’t remain over the allotment of the righteous; so that the righteous won’t use their hands to do evil.
- Isa 30:31For through Yahweh’s voice the Assyrian will be dismayed. He will strike him with his rod.
- Hos 10:13You have plowed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, for you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men.
- Prov 14:3The fool’s talk brings a rod to his back, but the lips of the wise protect them.
- Isa 10:5Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation!
- Isa 9:4For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as in the day of Midian.
- Isa 14:29Don’t rejoice, O Philistia, all of you, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the serpent’s root an adder will emerge, and his fruit will be a fiery flying serpent.
- Hos 8:7For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 22:8 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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