PROVERBS CHAPTER 17.
V. 1. Better is a dry morsel, without even the customary wine or diluted vinegar, and quietness therewith, harmony among all those at the table, than an house full of sacrifices, a great amount of the meat and other sumptuous foods served at sacrificial meals, with strife, hatred breaking out in quarrels, this being the danger when the rich went to excesses in their banquets.
V. 2. A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, the degenerate, profligate heir of the house, who squanders his fortune, becoming poor to the point of enforced servitude, while the former slave, through diligence and thrift, would become master, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren, that is, having squandered his own patrimony, the foolish son, though the firstborn, would be obliged to divide the inheritance among the other heirs, while he himself receives not another cent.
V. 3. The fining-pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, their nature and purity in either case being brought out by the process to which they are submitted; but the Lord trieth the hearts, testing the worth of both their nature and their contents, familiar with even the hidden desires of men.