Biblical references in Chapter 4

 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

33Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

Proverbs 23:32 "It stingeth like an adder and biteth like a serpent"

 tarry long at the wine

verse 33 "Thine eyes shall behold strange women..."

Tamar and Joshua (Joshua was drunk) Genesis 38 Onan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamar_(Genesis)

 When the bartender serves Buck his second drink and says "it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.", the statement is the first Biblical reference to be found in the novel

In the end it bites like a snake

and stings like a viper.

Tamar is the Bible's first prostitute and , ironically, the first "John" is Joseph's brother, Judah, who came up with the idea of selling the Bible's first slave, Joseph, in Dothan.

33Your eyes will see strange things,

and your mind will utter perversities.

Neither the Aven bartender nor Buck Bannon could be held up as "men of faith" yet their childhood upbringing in the country church guaranteed that their adult conversations in Aven would be filled with Biblical references. The reader finds a few of these Biblical references peppered throughout this novel but Chapter 4 has more of these  than any other part of the book. It may be a stretch but  Buck's drunken adventure going through Baptist Bottom, buying the preacher's billy goats and heading to Mabe's Place may also be an allusion to the Biblical story in Genesis of Judah and Tamar in Genesis Chapter 38 which tells the story of Tamar, the Bible's first prostitute.

Chapter 4 may use more Biblical allusions than any other portion of the novel. There's the bartender's use of the verse in Proverbs which has been used by every Prohibitionist who ever picked up a Bible.

from the April 16, 1937 DOTHAN EAGLE 

In fact Proverbs 23:32 has been called THE GOLDEN TEXT of all the Bible's teachings about the deceitfulness of wine and other alcoholic beverages.