◄ 1 Corinthians 14:7 ►
Verse  (Click for Chapter)
Good News Translation
Take such lifeless musical instruments as the flute or the harp--how will anyone know the tune that is being played unless the notes are sounded distinctly?

New Revised Standard Version
It is the same way with lifeless instruments that produce sound, such as the flute or the harp. If they do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is being played?

Contemporary English Version
If all musical instruments sounded alike, how would you know the difference between a flute and a harp?

New American Bible
Likewise, if inanimate things that produce sound, such as flute or harp, do not give out the tones distinctly, how will what is being played on flute or harp be recognized?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Even things without life that give sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction of sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Even things without life that give sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction of sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?

things.

1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

except.

1 Corinthians 14:8 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

Numbers 10:2-10 Make thee two trumpets of beaten silver, wherewith thou mayest call together the multitude when the camp is to be removed. . . .

Matthew 11:17 Who crying to their companions say: We have piped to you, and you have not danced: we have lamented, and you have not mourned.

Luke 7:32 They are like to children sitting in the marketplace and speaking one to another and saying: We have piped to you, and you have not danced: we have mourned, and you have not wept.

sounds.

Context
Prophecy and Tongues
…6But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you either in revelation or in knowledge or in prophecy or in doctrine? 7Even things without life that give sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction of sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? 8For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?…
Cross References
1 Samuel 10:5
After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where the garrison of the Philistines is: and when thou shalt be come there into the city, thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place, with a psaltery, and a timbrel, and a pipe, and a harp before them, and they shall be prophesying.

Matthew 11:17
Who crying to their companions say: We have piped to you, and you have not danced: we have lamented, and you have not mourned.

1 Corinthians 14:6
But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you either in revelation or in knowledge or in prophecy or in doctrine?

1 Corinthians 14:8
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

1 Corinthians 14:6
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