Otherwise they will drink and forget what is decreed, And pervert the rights of all the needy.
Parallel translations
- WEB lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the justice due to anyone who is afflicted.
- KJV Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.
- BSB lest they drink and forget what is decreed, depriving all the oppressed of justice.
- NKJV Lest they drink and forget the law, And pervert the justice of all the afflicted.
- NLT For if they drink, they may forget the law and not give justice to the oppressed.
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
Drink leads rulers to forget the law and deny justice to the afflicted.
Overview
The danger of royal drunkenness is concrete: impaired judgment perverts justice, especially for the vulnerable who depend on righteous rule. A leader's self-indulgence becomes the oppressed person's injustice. This concern for justice reflects God's own heart and anticipates Christ, the King who never fails to uphold the cause of the lowly.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 1
- Hab 2:5Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous. A haughty man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol, and he is like death, and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations, and heaps to himself all peoples.
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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 31:5 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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