Proverbs 10
The full text of Proverbs 10 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 A wise son brings joy to his father,
but a foolish son is grief to his mother.
2 Ill-gotten treasures profit nothing,
but righteousness delivers from death.
3 The LORD will not let the righteous go hungry,
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
4 A slack hand brings poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
5 He who gathers in summer is a wise son,
but he who sleeps at harvest brings shame.
6 Blessings are upon the head of the righteous,
but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
7 The memory of the righteous is a blessing,
but the name of the wicked will rot.
8 The wise of heart will accept commands,
but a babbling fool will come to ruin.
9 Whoever walks with integrity walks securely,
but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.
10 Whoever winks the eye causes trouble,
and a babbling fool will come to ruin.
11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
12 Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers over all offenses.
13 Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning,
but a rod for the back of one who lacks sense.
14 The wise lay up knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool is ruin close at hand.
15 A rich man's wealth is his strong city;
the poverty of the poor is their ruin.
16 The wages of the righteous bring life;
the harvest of the wicked brings sin.
17 Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life,
but whoever rejects reproof goes astray.
18 Whoever conceals hatred has lying lips,
and whoever spreads slander is a fool.
19 When words are many, transgression is unavoidable,
but whoever holds his tongue is wise.
20 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver;
the heart of the wicked is of little worth.
21 The lips of the righteous feed many,
but fools die for lack of sense.
22 The blessing of the LORD brings wealth,
and he adds no sorrow to it.
23 It is like sport to a fool to do wrong,
but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.
24 What the wicked dreads will come upon him,
but the desire of the righteous will be granted.
25 When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more,
but the righteous stands firm forever.
26 Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes,
so is a sluggard to those who send him.
27 The fear of the LORD adds length to life,
but the years of the wicked are cut short.
28 The hope of the righteous brings joy,
but the expectation of the wicked will perish.
29 The way of the LORD is a stronghold to the blameless,
but ruin to those who do evil.
30 The righteous will never be uprooted,
but the wicked will not remain in the land.
31 The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom,
but the perverse tongue will be cut off.
32 The lips of the righteous know what is fitting,
but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse.
Translation notes (8)
- Proverbs 10:6a The Hebrew clause allows either noun to serve as subject: the mouth of the wicked may conceal chamas, 'violence', or violence may cover the mouth. The rendering here takes chamas as the subject, preserving the parallel with blessings resting upon the head of the righteous. The identical clause recurs in Proverbs 10:11.
- Proverbs 10:10a The second line of the Masoretic Text repeats Proverbs 10:8b verbatim. The Septuagint instead reads 'but the one who reproves openly makes peace,' supplying the antithetical parallelism typical of this chapter; some critics therefore judge the Greek to preserve the original second line. This translation follows the Hebrew as it stands.
- Proverbs 10:11a This line repeats Proverbs 10:6 exactly, and the Hebrew is similarly ambiguous: chamas, 'violence', may be the object concealed by the mouth or the subject that covers it, since yekhasseh, 'covers', permits either construal. The rendering here takes the mouth as subject, matching the first line, where the righteous mouth actively pours forth life. The same verb recurs in the next verse, where love covers offenses.
- Proverbs 10:12a The second half of this proverb is quoted in 1 Peter 4:8, where the Greek follows the Hebrew (ahavah, 'love'; kasah, 'to cover') rather than the Septuagint, which reads instead that friendship covers all who are not fond of strife. The citation in 1 Peter thus attests the antiquity of the reading preserved in the Masoretic Text.
- Proverbs 10:16a Hebrew pe'ullah, 'wages', denotes payment earned by labor, while tevu'ah, 'harvest', is properly the yield of a field, a term of income or produce. The proverb pairs two economic metaphors: the honest earnings of the righteous sustain life, but even the wicked person's increase yields only chatta't, 'sin'.
- Proverbs 10:22a The second clause can be read two ways: the Hebrew 'etsev means both 'sorrow' and 'painful toil'. Some take the sentence as 'and toil adds nothing to it', making human labor the subject; this translation takes the LORD as the subject, so that his blessing comes unaccompanied by grief, a reading supported by the Septuagint.
- Proverbs 10:26a Hebrew chomets ('vinegar') denotes sour wine, which sets the teeth on edge, while smoke from an open cooking fire stings the eyes; both were common daily irritants in ancient Israelite households. The atsel ('sluggard') provokes the same exasperation in sholechav, 'those who send him', that is, those who dispatch him as a messenger and wait in vain for his errand to be done.
- Proverbs 10:30a The Hebrew erets ('land', 'earth') here carries covenantal weight: dwelling securely in the land was the promised reward of obedience (Deuteronomy 28), while expulsion threatened the wicked. The proverb echoes Psalm 37, where the righteous inherit the land and evildoers are cut off from it. The phrase bal-yimmot, 'will never be moved', is also used of Zion's stability in Psalm 125:1.
About this translation
The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is Trinity Bible's own modern English translation, worked directly from the original Hebrew and honest to the earliest manuscripts. It was completed in 2026 — the most modern English Bible translation — and is exclusive to Trinity Bible. Every chapter, including all of Proverbs, is free to read here on the web.
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