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Proverbs 30:14 · World English Bible

Proverbs 30:14 Meaning There Is a Generation Whose Teeth Are

There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and their jaws like knives, to devour the poor from the earth, and the needy from among men.

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What does Proverbs 30:14 mean?

When guilt is thrown outward it becomes hunger, a mind convinced it must consume others in order to feel full. The teeth made into weapons are the ego's certainty that it is starving and that someone must be eaten so it can live.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 30:14 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

When guilt is thrown outward it becomes hunger, a mind convinced it must consume others in order to feel full. The teeth made into weapons are the ego's certainty that it is starving and that someone must be eaten so it can live. The poor and the needy are simply whoever seems weaker, chosen because attacking them promises a fullness that never comes, for what devours is emptied by the very act of devouring.

Nothing outside can fill a mind that believes it lacks. The hunger ends only when the mind sees it was never empty, and then it has no reason left to bite.

Teeth: the mind's instruments of attack, sharpened into swords by the belief that it must take from others to survive The poor: those the mind judges to be weaker and marks as prey, the innocent seen through the eyes of a lack that is not real The needy: the same defenseless others, singled out for attack because the ego has mistaken cruelty for strength

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 30:14 today

  1. When a message or a headline makes you want to tear into someone, close the app and move your body for five minutes. The hunger to attack almost always passes before the walk is done.
  2. Find the person at work or in your family who is easiest to pick on, the one nobody defends, and do one quiet kind thing for them. Say nothing about it afterward.
  3. In an argument where you suddenly see exactly how to wound the other person, do not use it. Say the plain and softer version instead, even if it feels like losing.

What do I think I would finally have if I won by hurting someone?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 76

The hard and rigid breaks, while the soft and yielding endures. Teeth and stiffness belong to death, not to strength.

Buddhism · Dhammapada

Hatred has never once in history been ended by more hatred. What you sharpen against another cuts the hand that holds it.

Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita

Anger clouds judgment, judgment clouds memory, and a mind that has lost both is already ruined. The craving to strike is the beginning of that chain.

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