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Proverbs 17:14 · World English Bible

Proverbs 17:14 Meaning The Beginning of Strife Is Like Breaching

The beginning of strife is like breaching a dam, therefore stop contention before quarreling breaks out.

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What does Proverbs 17:14 mean?

A quarrel begins as a small thing, a single grievance let loose, yet once released it widens as water does through a breach, until the whole mind is flooded with the conflict it first permitted. The ego always urges the mind to press the argument, to be right, to add one more accusation, not knowing that each addition breaks the wall wider and drowns the peace it might still have kept.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 17:14 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

A quarrel begins as a small thing, a single grievance let loose, yet once released it widens as water does through a breach, until the whole mind is flooded with the conflict it first permitted. The ego always urges the mind to press the argument, to be right, to add one more accusation, not knowing that each addition breaks the wall wider and drowns the peace it might still have kept.

The correction is to stop at the very first thought of attack, before it is stirred and spread, for a grievance overlooked at its source never floods at all, and the mind stays whole by refusing to let the water out.

Water: the mind's peace held safely in place, which a single loosed grievance releases to flood everything once the wall is breached

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 17:14 today

  1. When a reply forms in your head at 11pm and your thumbs are already moving, put the phone face down and let the sentence go unsent. The argument you never start is the one you never have to finish.
  2. In the group chat, when someone says the thing that gets under your skin, answer the question they asked and leave the jab alone. You can let one line pass without picking it up.
  3. In the meeting where you are being talked over, say your point once, plainly, and stop. Adding the second and third version is where it turns into a fight.

What small thing am I about to say that I would be glad, tomorrow, to have left unsaid?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 64

What is still is easy to hold, and what has not yet begun is easy to stop. Handle a thing while it is small, before it grows past your hands.

Buddhism · Dhammapada

Hatred answered with hatred never ends; it is laid down only by one who refuses to pick it up. The quarrel dies where someone declines to carry it further.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

You are not harmed by the thing itself but by the judgment you add to it. Drop the judgment and the injury has nowhere to begin.

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