Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
"By and by he is offended" means that eventually, after some time, this person falls away
"By and by" meant immediately, right away, nearly the opposite of its modern sense.
Matthew 13:21, in every translation this tool compares.
Matthew 13:21, in the Parable of the Sower, describes the shallow-soil hearer: "when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended." In 1611 English, "by and by" meant "straightway, at once"; this person doesn't gradually drift away over time, they collapse the instant trouble shows up, which is the whole point about shallow roots.
Over the following centuries "by and by" reversed course and came to mean "eventually" or "after a while" (as in the old hymn "we'll understand it better by and by"), so a modern reader gets the timing of the parable exactly backwards.
