“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for so you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will reward you” (Proverbs 25:21-22).
The best way to reduce the number of enemies you have is to treat each one with compassion and kindness. Returning hostility for hostility only escalates a conflict. Recompensing evil with evil always makes evil the victor. Feeding a hungry foe and/or slaking his thirst is a far more likely way to effectively cause hostilities to cease.
Even at Mount Sinai, God expected His people to be compassionate and kind to their foes. “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again” (Ex. 23:4). Solomon echoes that sentiment here, and a millennium later Paul quotes this proverb (in Romans 12:20).
Not only does a wise and righteous person “repay no one evil for evil” (Rom. 12:17), he seeks to overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). By doing this, his enemy will have coals of fire heaped upon his head and the Lord will reward him for doing good.
