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Sunday, August 24th, 2025
the Week of Proper 16 / Ordinary 21
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Read the Bible

Complete Jewish Bible

Proverbs 15:17

Better a vegetable dinner with love than a stall-fattened ox with hate.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Cattle;   Family;   Food;   Hatred;   Herbs;   Love;   Malice;   Peace;   Riches;   Stall;   Thompson Chain Reference - Hatred;   Love-Hatred;   The Topic Concordance - Hate;   Love;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Diet of the Jews, the;   Hatred;   Herbs, &C;   Love to Man;   Ox, the;  

Dictionaries:

- Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Wealth;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Pardon;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Food;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Grass;   Proverbs, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Contentment;   Food;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Herb;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Dinner;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Meals;   Ox;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Food;   Herb;   Stall;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Better a meal of vegetables where there is lovethan a fattened ox with hatred.
Hebrew Names Version
Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, Than a fattened calf with hatred.
King James Version
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
English Standard Version
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it.
New American Standard Bible
Better is a portion of vegetables where there is love, Than a fattened ox served with hatred.
New Century Version
It is better to eat vegetables with those who love you than to eat meat with those who hate you.
Amplified Bible
Better is a dinner of vegetables and herbs where love is present Than a fattened ox served with hatred.
World English Bible
Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, Than a fattened calf with hatred.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Better is a dinner of greene herbes where loue is, then a stalled oxe and hatred therewith.
Legacy Standard Bible
Better is a dish of vegetables where there is loveThan a fattened ox and hatred in it.
Berean Standard Bible
Better a dish of vegetables where there is love than a fattened ox with hatred.
Contemporary English Version
A simple meal with love is better than a feast where there is hatred.
Darby Translation
Better is a meal of herbs where love is, than a fatted ox and hatred therewith.
Easy-to-Read Version
It is better to eat a little where there is love than to eat a lot where there is hate.
George Lamsa Translation
Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is than fatted steer and hatred with it.
Good News Translation
Better to eat vegetables with people you love than to eat the finest meat where there is hate.
Lexham English Bible
Better is a dinner of vegetables when love is there than a fattened ox and hatred with it.
Literal Translation
Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred with it.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Better is a meace of potage with loue, then a fat oxe wt euell will.
American Standard Version
Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, Than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Bible in Basic English
Better is a simple meal where love is, than a fat ox and hate with it.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
King James Version (1611)
Better is a dinner of herbes where loue is, then a stalled oxe, and hatred therewith.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Better is a dynner of hearbes with loue, then a fat oxe with euyll wyll.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Better is an entertainment of herbs with friendliness and kindness, than a feast of calves, with enmity.
English Revised Version
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
It is betere to be clepid to wortis with charite, than with hatrede to a calf maad fat.
Update Bible Version
Better is a dinner of herbs, where there is love, Than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Webster's Bible Translation
Better [is] a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred with it.
New English Translation
Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened ox where there is hatred.
New King James Version
Better is a dinner of herbs [fn] where love is,Than a fatted calf with hatred.
New Living Translation
A bowl of vegetables with someone you love is better than steak with someone you hate.
New Life Bible
A dish of vegetables with love is better than eating the best meat with hate.
New Revised Standard
Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Better is an allowance of herbs, and love, there, than a fatted ox, and hatred therewith.
Douay-Rheims Bible
It is better to be invited to herbs with love, than to a fatted calf with hatred.
Revised Standard Version
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it.
Young's Literal Translation
Better [is] an allowance of green herbs and love there, Than a fatted ox, and hatred with it.
THE MESSAGE
Better a bread crust shared in love than a slab of prime rib served in hate.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Better is a dish of vegetables where love is Than a fattened ox served with hatred.

Contextual Overview

16 Better little with the fear of Adonai than great wealth coupled with worry. 17 Better a vegetable dinner with love than a stall-fattened ox with hate.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Proverbs 17:1, Proverbs 21:19, Psalms 133:1-3, Philippians 2:1, 1 John 4:16

Reciprocal: Genesis 16:6 - Abram 1 Samuel 20:24 - the king Psalms 37:16 - General Proverbs 21:9 - brawling woman in a wide house Ecclesiastes 4:6 - General Jeremiah 46:21 - fatted bullocks Romans 14:2 - eateth Philippians 2:14 - disputings

Cross-References

Genesis 15:2
Avram replied, " Adonai , God, what good will your gifts be to me if I continue childless; and Eli‘ezer from Dammesek inherits my possessions?
Genesis 15:3
You haven't given me a child," Avram continued, "so someone born in my house will be my heir."
Genesis 15:18
That day Adonai made a covenant with Avram: "I have given this land to your descendants — from the Vadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River —
Genesis 15:19
the territory of the Keni, the K'nizi, the Kadmoni,
Deuteronomy 4:20
No, you Adonai has taken and brought out of the smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of inheritance for him, as you are today.
Judges 6:21
Then the angel of Adonai reached out with the stick he was holding, touched the meat and matzot, and fire shot up out of the rock and burned up the meat and matzot. Then the angel of Adonai disappeared before his eyes.
Judges 13:20
as the flame went up toward the sky from the altar, the angel of Adonai went up in the flame from the altar. When Manoach and his wife saw it, they fell to the ground on their faces.
2 Samuel 22:9
Smoke arose in his nostrils; and from his mouth, devouring fire, with coals blazing from it.
1 Chronicles 21:26
Then David built an altar to Adonai there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. He called on Adonai , who answered him from heaven by fire on the altar for burnt offerings.
Isaiah 62:1
For Tziyon's sake I will not be silent, for Yerushalayim's sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out brightly and her salvation like a blazing torch.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Better [is] a dinner of herbs, where love is,.... What Plautus i calls "asperam et terrestrem caenam", "a harsh and earthly supper", made of what grows out of the earth; which is got without much cost or care, and dressed with little trouble; a traveller's dinner, as the word k signifies, and a poor one too to travel upon, such as is easily obtained, and presently cooked, and comes cheap. Now, where there are love and good nature in the host that prepares this dinner; or in a family that partakes of such an one, having no better; or among guests invited, who eat friendly together; or in the person that invites them, who receives them cheerfully, and heartily bids them welcome: such a dinner, with such circumstances, is better

than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith; than an ox kept up in the stall for fattening; or than a fatted one, which with the ancients was the principal in a grand entertainment; hence the allusion in Matthew 22:4. In the times of Homer, an ox was in high esteem at their festivals; at the feasts made by his heroes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Ajax, an ox was a principal part of them, if not the whole; the back of a fat ox, or a sirloin of beef, was a favourite dish l. Indeed in some ages, both among Greeks and Romans, an ox was abstained from, through a superstitious regard to it, because so useful a creature in ploughing of the land; and it was carried so far as to suppose it to be as sinful to slay an ox as to kill a man m: and Aratus n represents it as not done, neither in the golden nor silver age, but that in the brasen age men first began to kill and eat oxen; but this is to be confuted by the laws of God, Genesis 9:3; and by the examples of Abraham and others. Now if there is hatred, either in the host, or in the guests among themselves, or in a family, it must stir up strifes and contentions, and render all enjoyments unpleasant and uncomfortable; see Proverbs 17:1; but where the love of God is, which is better than life, and the richest enjoyments of it; which sweetens every mercy, and cannot be purchased with money; and secures the best of blessings, the riches of grace and glory, and itself can never be lost; where this is, the meanest diet is preferable to the richest and most costly banquets of wicked men; who are hated and abhorred by the Lord, for their oppression and injustice, their luxury, or their covetousness; for poor men may be loved of God, and the rich be abhorred by him, Psalms 10:4.

i Capteivei, Act. 1. Sc. 2. v. 80. . 3. Sc. 1. v. 37. k ארחת "viaticum", Montanus, Amama "commeatus", Cocceius. l Iliad. 7. v. 320, 321. Odyss. 4. v. 65. & 8. v. 60. Vid. Suidam in voce ομηρος. Virgil. Aeneid. 8. v. 182. m Aelian. l. 5. c. 14. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 45. n Phoenomena, v. 132.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A dinner of herbs - The meals of the poor and the abstemious. The “stalled ox,” like the “fatted calf” of Luke 15:23, would indicate a stately magnificence.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Proverbs 15:17. Better is a dinner of herbs — Great numbers of indigent Hindoos subsist wholly on herbs, fried in oil, and mixed with their rice.


 
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