Proverbs 20:17
Food gained by fraud is sweet to a man, but later his mouth is full of gravel.
BSB
ASV
Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man; But afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
KJV
Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
“To eat gravel” was a Hebrew Lam 3:16, and is an Arabic, phrase for getting into trouble. So “bread,” got by deceit, tastes sweet at first, but ends by leaving the hunger of the soul unsatisfied. There is a pleasure in the sense of cleverness felt after a hard bargain or a successful fraud, which must be met by bidding men look on the after consequences.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Ecclesiastes 11:9Rejoice, O young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes,…
leads to
For God will bring every deed into judgment, along with every hidden thing, whether good or evil.
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of adversity come and the years approach of which you will say, “I find no pleasure in them,”
It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is still young.
I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked, since there is a time for every activity and every deed.”
Through
Hebrews 11:25He chose to suffer oppression with God’s people rather than to experience the fleeting enjoyment of sin.
leads to
For better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
Join me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Be careful not to turn to iniquity, for this you have preferred to affliction.
