Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you
Or a "defect": a want of brotherly love, or there would be no occasion to go to law at all; a want of wisdom and conduct, or proper persons would be pitched upon, and chosen out from among themselves to be arbitrators and judge between them; and a want of care among their leaders, who else would have pointed out to them such a method of accommodation, and not have suffered them to go the lengths they did:
because ye go to law one with another;
which would never be, was there not a declension among you, a decay of your first love, and of the power of religion and true godliness:
why do ye not rather take wrong why do ye not rather suffer
yourselves to be defrauded?
than to go to law, especially before unjust persons and unbelievers, taking the advice of Christ, ( Matthew 5:40 ) It is more advisable to a believer to suffer wrong than to go to law with any man, and especially with a brother. It is a petition in the Jewish liturgy F7,
``let it please thee, O Lord God, and the God of my fathers, to deliver me this day, and every day---from hard judgment, and a severe adversary, (tyrb Nb wnyav Nybw tyrb) (Nb awhv Nyb) , "whether he be a Son of the covenant, or whether he be not a son of the covenant".''