If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink: for you will heap coals of fire on his head, and Yahweh will reward you.
⛓ Read Proverbs 25 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Quotation1
A formal citation — high verbal volume, often introduced by a saying-formula.
12:20 quotes nearly verbatim: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing so you will heap coals of fire on his head.' Paul takes over the LXX wisdom saying whole as the positive counterpart to renounced vengeance.
High confidenceAllusion1
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'If your enemy is hungry, give him bread... ' is the wisdom tradition's enacted enemy-love, closely matching 'do good to those who hate you' and 'give to everyone who asks.' High Coherence with Leviticus 19 and Exodus 23.
High confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
Feed your enemy, give him drink; the generous-to-the-aggressor ethic extending into giving coat and cloak.
Low confidenceGiving the thirsty water to drink as a rewarded act of mercy is a wisdom analogue to 'a cup of cold water... he will in no way lose his reward' (10:42), though the proverb concerns an enemy. Thematic and disputed.
Low confidence