Proverbs 25:21-28

Is your enemy hungry? Buy him lunch. Win him over with your kindness. Your surprising generosity will awaken his conscience and God will reward you with favor. As the north wind brings a storm, saying things you shouldn’t brings a storm to any relationship. It’s better to live all alone in a rundown shack than to share a castle with a crabby spouse! Like a drink of cool water refreshes a weary, thirsty soul, so hearing good news revives the spirit. When a lover of God gives in and compromises with wickedness, it can be compared to contaminating a stream with sewage or polluting a fountain. It’s good to eat sweet things, but you can take too much. It’s good to be honored, but to seek words of praise is not honor at all. If you live without restraint and are unable to control your temper, you’re as helpless as a city with broken-down defenses, open to attack.