And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves?
Parallel translations
- WEB When you eat, and when you drink, don’t you eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
- KJV And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
- NKJV When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves?
- NASB And when you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
- NLT And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves?
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
Even their eating and drinking served themselves, not God. The verse warns that ordinary life, like worship, can be wholly self-directed rather than God-directed.
Overview
God presses the indictment: just as their fasts were self-serving, so were their feasts. The contrast highlights that all of life, whether abstaining or enjoying, should be lived to the Lord (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:31). The diagnosis exposes a heart turned inward, the root problem behind hollow religion.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- 1 Cor 11:20–21Now then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat.
- 1 Cor 11:26–29For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
- Col 3:17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
- Hos 8:13Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the LORD does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.
- 1 Cor 10:31So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.
- Deut 12:7There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households shall eat and rejoice in all you do, because the LORD your God has blessed you.
- Hos 9:4They will not pour out wine offerings to the LORD, and their sacrifices will not please Him, but will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat will be defiled. For their bread will be for themselves; it will not enter the house of the LORD.
- Deut 14:26Then you may spend the money on anything you desire: cattle, sheep, wine, strong drink, or anything you wish. You are to feast there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice with your household.
- Jer 17:9–10The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
- 1 Chr 29:22That day they ate and drank with great joy in the presence of the LORD. Then, for a second time, they designated David’s son Solomon as king, anointing him before the LORD as ruler, and Zadok as the priest.
- 1 Sam 16:7But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or height, for I have rejected him; the LORD does not see as man does. For man sees the outward appearance, but the LORD sees the heart.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Branch who is both priest and king, the shepherd struck and the flock scattered, the king coming humble on a donkey, the one they pierced, the fountain opened for sin — Zechariah is dense with Christ.
How Zechariah 7:6 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.