Do Not Envy Evil Men
01 Do not be envious of evil men,
00 Nor desire to be with them;
02 For their heart devises violence,
00 And their lips talk of troublemaking.
03 Through wisdom a house is built,
00 And by understanding it is established;
04 By knowledge the rooms are filled
00 With all precious and pleasant riches.
05 A wise man is strong,
00 Yes, a man of knowledge increases strength;
06 For by wise counsel you will wage your own war,
00 And in a multitude of counselors there is safety.
07 Wisdom is too lofty for a fool;
00 He does not open his mouth in the gate.
08 He who plots to do evil
00 Will be called a schemer.
09 The devising of foolishness is sin,
00 And the scoffer is an abomination to men.
10 If you faint in the day of adversity,
00 Your strength is small.
11 Deliver those who are drawn toward death,
00 And hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.
12 If you say, "Surely we did not know this,"
00 Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it?
00 He who keeps your soul, does He not know it?
00 And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?
13 My son, eat honey because it is good,
00 And the honeycomb which is sweet to your taste;
14 So shall the knowledge of wisdom be to your soul;
00 If you have found it, there is a prospect,
00 And your hope will not be cut off.
15 Do not lie in wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous;
00 Do not plunder his resting place;
16 For a righteous man may fall seven times
00 And rise again,
00 But the wicked shall fall by calamity.
17 Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,
00 And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles;
18 Lest the LORD see it, and it displease Him,
00 And He turn away His wrath from him.
19 Do not fret because of evildoers,
00 Nor be envious of the wicked;
20 For there will be no prospect for the evil man;
00 The lamp of the wicked will be put out.
21 My son, fear the LORD and the king;
00 Do not associate with those given to change;
22 For their calamity will rise suddenly,
00 And who knows the ruin those two can bring?
Further Sayings of the Wise
23 These things also belong to the wise:
00 It is not good to show partiality in judgment.
24 He who says to the wicked, "You are righteous,"
00 Him the people will curse;
00 Nations will abhor him.
25 But those who rebuke the wicked will have delight,
00 And a good blessing will come upon them.
26 He who gives a right answer kisses the lips.
27 Prepare your outside work,
00Make it fit for yourself in the field;
00 And afterward build your house.
28 Do not be a witness against your neighbor without cause,
00 For would you deceive with your lips?
29 Do not say, "I will do to him just as he has done to me;
00 I will render to the man according to his work."
30 I went by the field of the lazy man,
00 And by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding;
31 And there it was, all overgrown with thorns;
00 Its surface was covered with nettles;
00 Its stone wall was broken down.
32 When I saw it, I considered it well;
00 I looked on it and received instruction:
33 A little sleep, a little slumber,
00 A little folding of the hands to rest;
34 So shall your poverty come like a prowler,
00 And your need like an armed man.
In today's world, so many people have put the cart before the horse, because all their priorities are out of wack. This simple little proverb by Solomon is direct and to the point.
Prepare your outside work,
Make it fit for yourself in the field;
And afterward build your house. Proverb 24:27
Simply put, God tells us to put the priority of our needs ahead of our desires. This should be understood and taken into consideration of the times Solomon lived. Israel was an agriculture society, and men worked the fields and grew their own crops. Thus the admonition to care for that which would care for your families direct needs. Plow the fields and plant the crops before caring for the building of the home.
Living in a tent was good enough until you had sufficiently gained the means to properly build a good home. What good are the desires of life if food is not available to feed the family and the funds are not available to build a proper home. In today's world you can equate the tent with renting an apartment, thus you care for your family by getting a job to feed them and care for the needs you can afford. When you have sufficient money, or credit for a home, then you build it.
Things are so out of wack today that we are moving in before we even get married. More time than not there are even children to care for before there are sufficient funds to properly care for them. Thus the high expense of caring for a family is so far out of reach that many never get to the point of building a home. They end up being wards of the state as the tax payers pick up their slack. Like the Dolphins who lost their need to feed themselves, so too are so many Americans living in perpetual poverty from generation to generation because they never headed this simple proverb.
Look at the mess so many got themselves into during the housing crash. People were getting loans from banks for homes they could not afford, and so many ended up losing what investment they had by walking away from the home. Often times at the bank’s suggestion. Frankly, it's because they were convinced by so many others who had what they could not afford that they followed suit. One after the other followed stupid. Instead of paying attention to the wise men who understood it was a bad idea to go into debt beyond their means. They knew that living in the apartment was the right thing to do for heir family instead of extending themselves beyond their future your means.
This principle is not limited to work and housing? The application should go much deeper into our thinking and our behavior. We should always work and care for what we need and when we are ready then purchase the things we can afford. Even after so many lost so much, they then turned around and again got credit cards they cannot afford. Many Americans have more than ten credit cards in their wallets that are maxed out because they simply will not wait.
Notice the Proverb does not condemn the building of the house, it simply puts it in order. There is a time to build the house, and their is a time to wait. That is the message for us and frankly for the crowd that wants others to provide for their needs, which are really wants rather than working themselves. Having the nicer things of life should come after they are earned. There is nothing wrong with building the house but do the work first. Be sure to put the horse before the cart, or your journey through life is going to be very chaotic.
The purpose of Writing the book of Proverbs was to reveal the mind of God in matters high and lofty and in common, ordinary, everyday situations. It appears that no topic escaped King Solomon's attention. Matters pertaining to personal conduct, sexual relations, business, wealth, charity, ambition, discipline, debt, child-rearing, character, alcohol, politics, revenge, and Godliness are among the many topics covered in this rich collection of wise sayings.
Without wisdom, knowledge is nothing more than an accumulation of raw facts, influenced by emotional feelings. Many highly educated people are in positions of power in the United States, but very few of those educated leaders have the wisdom needed to rule properly.
One can say that they have been educated well beyond their intelligence. A cursory look at the court system will prove my point that knowledge without wisdom will only lead to an immoral society that eventually crumbles from within. Judges are supposed to be above the fray, and immovable to emotions. Instead, the vast majority of judges today are Godless individuals who are vacant of wisdom. So their rulings are totally based upon emotional feelings.
We the people are to blame, because we ignored God's guidance in appointing our leaders. Instead of putting leaders full wisdom in power, we instead chose those who would scratch our itchy ears to lead us.
Of the 31 Proverbs, only the first 24 were written by Solomon. King Hezekiah wrote 5, Proverbs 25 to 29, Agur wrote Proverb 30, and Lemuel wrote Proverb 31. Now many believe Lemuel was in fact King Solomon and Lemuel was just a nick name his Mother, Bathsheba gave him. We are told that Solomon write over 3000 Proverbs and composed 1000 songs, but the only Proverbs God decided to preserve for us are Proverbs 1-24. Like the New Testament epistle by James, it is impossible to get a chronological outline for a study since they all bounce from subject to subject.
Along with my daily routine of reading the Bible, I try to read through the book of Proverbs once a Month. It's an easy task when you consider there are 31 Proverbs. So all you need to know is what day of the Month it is. In the Months that have 30 days, or in the case of February, I just double up by reading more than one two proverb so I can begin the next month with Proverb 1 on the first again.
