Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions ? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
Proverbs is a collection of wisdom writings in the Bible, traditionally associated with King Solomon of ancient Israel, though it contains contributions from several different sources. This verse opens a famous warning about alcohol with six rapid-fire rhetorical questions, all pointing toward the same kind of misery. Who ends up with woe — a word meaning deep grief or ruin? Who ends up in pointless fights? Who has bruises they can't explain and eyes red from drinking? The questions don't demand an answer out loud; the reader is expected to feel the answer already forming. They're designed to make you picture someone specific, or perhaps recognize something closer to home.
God, give me the honesty to answer these questions truthfully when they're about me. I don't want to explain away what I've been doing to myself. Show me the needless places — the bruises I keep earning — and give me the grace and the courage to change course. Amen.
Six questions, zero answers given. The writer knows you already know. You've seen this person — maybe across a dinner table, maybe in a bathroom mirror at 6 AM. The bruises without clean explanations. The sorrow that's heavier in the morning than it was the night before. The fights that started nowhere and ended somewhere you're still trying to get back from. This isn't a lecture — it's a diagnostic, written with the precision of someone who has watched what unexamined habits do to a person over years. What stops me here is the word needless. Not all bruises are needless — some are the marks of hard work, of standing for something, of falling and getting back up. But there's a category of suffering that is genuinely self-inflicted, and the courage of this verse is in refusing to dress it up as something else. The most important question this passage raises isn't just who has all this woe. It's the quieter, more uncomfortable one underneath: could it be me?
Why do you think the writer chose to frame this warning as a series of questions rather than a direct command — what effect does that have on how you receive it?
Have you ever recognized a pattern of needless pain in your own life — suffering that was genuinely self-created? What did it take before you could see it clearly?
What is a habit or pattern in your life right now that, if you're honest with yourself, is producing woe rather than life — and what keeps you from naming it?
How do you respond when someone you care about seems stuck in a cycle of self-inflicted harm, and how does this verse shape how you might choose to speak to them?
What would it look like to have an honest, specific conversation with a trusted friend this week about one area where you suspect you might be hurting yourself?
And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
Deuteronomy 21:20
Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
Isaiah 5:22
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Proverbs 20:1
Be not among winebibbers ; among riotous eaters of flesh:
Proverbs 23:20
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
Proverbs 23:21
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
Ephesians 5:18
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!
Isaiah 5:11
But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken;
Luke 12:45
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Whose eyes are red and dim?
AMP
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
ESV
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
NASB
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
NIV
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
NKJV
Who has anguish? Who has sorrow? Who is always fighting? Who is always complaining? Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
NLT
Who are the people who are always crying the blues? Who do you know who reeks of self-pity? Who keeps getting beat up for no reason at all? Whose eyes are bleary and bloodshot?
MSG