For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
Parallel translations
- WEB For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
- BSB For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
- NKJV For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence.
- NASB For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence.
- NLT They eat the food of wickedness and drink the wine of violence!
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
The wicked feed on wickedness and violence as if it were their food and drink. Evil has become their very sustenance.
Overview
Wickedness and violence are pictured as the bread and wine of the wicked, their daily nourishment and delight. Sin is not occasional for them but the substance of their lives. This contrasts sharply with the righteous, who feed on God's word and ultimately on Christ, the true bread of life (John 6:35).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ps 14:4Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
- Prov 20:17Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
- Jas 5:4–5Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
- Prov 9:17Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
- Mic 6:12For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
- Mic 3:5Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.
- Zeph 3:3Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.
- Jer 5:26–28For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
- Job 24:5–6Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children.
- Matt 23:13But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
- Ezek 22:25–29There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.
- Amos 8:4–6Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,
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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 4:17 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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