Galatians 5:15

But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.

World English Bible
Learn

Your notes

Private to you. Anything you write on this verse, here or while reading, shows up here and in My study.

Other translations

WEBBE

But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.

BSB

But if you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another.

ASV

But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

Original Greek

Look up a word

Tap a word to see what it means and everywhere else it's used.

The early church

That he may not distress them, he does not assert this, though he knew it was the case, but mentions it ambiguously. For he does not say, "Inasmuch as ye bite one another," nor again does he assert, in the clause following, that they shall be consumed by each other; but "take heed that ye be not consumed one of another," and this is the language of apprehension and warning, not of condemnation. And the words which he uses are expressly significant; he says not merely, "ye bite," which one might do in a passion, but also "ye devour," which implies a bearing of malice. To bite is to satisfy the feeling of anger, but to devour is a proof of the most savage ferocity. The biting and devouring he speaks of are not bodily, but of a much more cruel kind; for it is not such an injury to taste the flesh of man, as to fix one's fangs in his soul. In proportion as the soul is more precious than the body, is damage to it more serious. "Take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." For those who commit injury and lay plots, do so in order to destroy others; therefore he says, Take heed that this evil fall not on your own heads. For strife and dissensions are the ruin and destruction as well of those who admit as of those who introduce them, and eats out every thing worse than a moth does.
John Chrysostom · d. 407Homilies on Galatians

Commentary

Matthew Henry · Verses 13–15

The gospel is a doctrine according to godliness, 1Ti 6:3, and is so far from giving the least countenance to sin, that it lays us under the strongest obligation to avoid and subdue it. The apostle urges that all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. If Christians, who should help one another, and rejoice one another, quarrel, what can be expected but that the God of love should deny his grace, that the Spirit of love should depart, and the evil spirit, who seeks their destruction, should prevail? Happy would it be, if Christians, instead of biting and devouring one another on account of different opinions, would set themselves against sin in themselves, and in the places where they live.

Read Matthew Henry on Galatians 5 →

Cross-references

13

Topics

Cross-references: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Hebrew and Greek data from STEPBible.org (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0. Library: sources.