Proverbs 13 explained: Wise Living in Everyday Choices

Listening and careful speech (vv. 1-3)

A wise child takes correction from a parent, while a mocker shrugs it off. What you say comes back to you: careful speech protects your life, and careless talk can wreck it.

Effort and honesty (vv. 4-6)

The lazy person keeps wanting things but never works for them, while the hard worker ends up satisfied. Honest people hate lies and their honesty guards them, while wrongdoing trips up the one who does it.

Money, show and pride (vv. 7-11)

Some people put on a show of wealth they do not have, others hide wealth they do, and verse 8 is unclear but may mean the rich can buy their way out of danger while the poor are not worth threatening. Pride breeds quarrels, and money gained dishonestly drains away while money saved bit by bit grows.

Hope and wise teaching (vv. 12-19)

Verse 12 names a familiar feeling: hope that keeps being put off wears you down, while a wish come true is like a 'tree of life', a picture of deep refreshment. Good teaching is pictured as a fresh spring that steers people away from deadly traps, and a reliable messenger brings healing where an unreliable one causes trouble.

Company and what lasts (vv. 20-23)

The people you spend time with shape who you become, and good people leave something behind for their grandchildren. Verse 23 is hard to translate, but it seems to say the poor could grow enough to eat if injustice did not take it from them.

Discipline and enough to eat (vv. 24-25)

The 'rod' was a stick used for physical punishment, normal in the ancient world, and readers today differ over whether that method still applies, though the saying's point is that loving parents correct their children instead of ignoring them. The chapter closes on a contrast it keeps returning to: the good have enough, and the wicked go hungry.

Key verse: Proverbs 13:20

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether sayings like these promise that good people will prosper or simply describe how life usually tends to go, since experience and other parts of the Bible, such as the book of Job, show that good people sometimes suffer.

Something to think about

When has a hope that kept getting put off affected you, and what, if anything, helped you carry it?