Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageBut what did they do instead? Feasting and festivity! Slaughtering bulls, butchering sheep, eating meat and drinking wine freely, with the cry: "Eat and drink—for tomorrow we die!"
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GBut look—joy and gladness! Slaughtering cattle and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine! 'Eat and drink—for tomorrow we die!'
KJV
King James VersionAnd behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleBut look, there is joy and gladness, butchering of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”
Footnotes
"Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" is the ancient world's quintessential motto of defiant despair — an Epicurean posture of fatalism in the face of death. Jerusalem hears the divine call to mourning and throws a party instead: a grotesque inversion of covenant faithfulness. The slaughter of cattle and sheep also echoes sacrificial language, giving the feast a depraved liturgical quality — as though revelry were their act of worship. Paul quotes this exact phrase in 1 Cor 15:32 to illustrate what life looks like without resurrection hope, showing how deeply the phrase had lodged in the communal memory. FOG renders the proclamation as direct speech to capture its defiant register; FOG Message integrates it into the narrative momentum before delivering the line as a climax.
