Like a trampled spring and a polluted well, So is a righteous person who gives way before the wicked.
Parallel translations
- WEB Like a muddied spring, and a polluted well, so is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.
- KJV A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring.
- BSB Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked.
- NKJV A righteous man who falters before the wicked Is like a murky spring and a polluted well.
- NLT If the godly give in to the wicked, it’s like polluting a fountain or muddying a spring.
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
A righteous person who caves before the wicked is like a fouled spring or polluted well. Moral compromise spoils what should refresh others.
Overview
The righteous are meant to be a source of life and blessing, so when they yield to evil, the harm is like contaminating a community's water supply. The proverb warns against compromise that ruins one's good influence. It calls believers to steadfastness, as Christ remained unyielding in righteousness for our sake.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ezek 34:18–19Does it seem a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture? and to have drunk of the clear waters, but you must foul the residue with your feet?
- 1 Sam 22:14–18Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, “Who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, and is taken into your council, and is honorable in your house?
- 1 Th 2:15who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and didn’t please God, and are contrary to all men;
- 2 Chr 24:21–22They conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of Yahweh’s house.
- Acts 7:52Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.
- Rev 17:6I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered with great amazement.
- Gen 4:8Cain said to Abel, his brother, “Let’s go into the field.” While they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.
- Matt 23:34–37Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city;
- Matt 26:69–74Now Peter was sitting outside in the court, and a maid came to him, saying, “You were also with Jesus, the Galilean!”
- Ezek 32:2Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, You were likened to a young lion of the nations: yet you are as a monster in the seas; and you broke out with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.
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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 25:26 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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