5When you set your eyes on it, it is gone.
         For wealth certainly makes itself wings
         Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.

6Do not eat the bread of a selfish man,
         Or desire his delicacies;

7For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
         He says to you, “Eat and drink!”
         But his heart is not with you.

8You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten,
         And waste your compliments.

9Do not speak in the hearing of a fool,
         For he will despise the wisdom of your words.

10Do not move the ancient boundary
         Or go into the fields of the fatherless,

11For their Redeemer is strong;
         He will plead their case against you.

12Apply your heart to discipline
         And your ears to words of knowledge.

13Do not hold back discipline from the child,
         Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.

14You shall strike him with the rod
         And rescue his soul from Sheol.

15My son, if your heart is wise,
         My own heart also will be glad;

16And my inmost being will rejoice
         When your lips speak what is right.

17Do not let your heart envy sinners,
         But live in the fear of the LORD always.

18Surely there is a future,
         And your hope will not be cut off.

19Listen, my son, and be wise,
         And direct your heart in the way.

20Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine,
         Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;

21For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty,
         And drowsiness will clothe one with rags.

22Listen to your father who begot you,
         And do not despise your mother when she is old.

23Buy truth, and do not sell it,
         Get wisdom and instruction and understanding.

24The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice,
         And he who sires a wise son will be glad in him.

25Let your father and your mother be glad,
         And let her rejoice who gave birth to you.

26Give me your heart, my son,
         And let your eyes delight in my ways.

27For a harlot is a deep pit
         And an adulterous woman is a narrow well.

28Surely she lurks as a robber,
         And increases the faithless among men.

29Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
         Who has contentions? Who has complaining?
         Who has wounds without cause?
         Who has redness of eyes?

30Those who linger long over wine,
         Those who go to taste mixed wine.

31Do not look on the wine when it is red,
         When it sparkles in the cup,
         When it goes down smoothly;

32At the last it bites like a serpent
         And stings like a viper.

33Your eyes will see strange things
         And your mind will utter perverse things.

34And you will be like one who lies down in the middle of the sea,
         Or like one who lies down on the top of a mast.

35“They struck me, but I did not become ill;
         They beat me, but I did not know it.
         When shall I awake?
         I will seek another drink.”

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, Cease from your consideration of it.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Do not wear yourself out getting rich. Be smart enough to stop.

King James Bible
Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.

Darby Bible Translation
Weary not thyself to become rich; cease from thine own intelligence:

English Revised Version
Weary not thyself to be rich; cease from thine own wisdom.

Webster's Bible Translation
Labor not to be rich: cease from thy own wisdom.

World English Bible
Don't weary yourself to be rich. In your wisdom, show restraint.

Young's Literal Translation
Labour not to make wealth, From thine own understanding cease, Dost thou cause thine eyes to fly upon it? Then it is not.

Cross References

Matthew 6:19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

Mark 4:19 but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

1 Timothy 6:9 But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.

Hebrews 13:5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,"

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.

Proverbs 3:7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and turn away from evil.

Proverbs 15:27 He who profits illicitly troubles his own house, But he who hates bribes will live.

Proverbs 28:20 A faithful man will abound with blessings, But he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished.

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 4-5

As some are given to appetite (v. 2) so others to covetousness, and those Solomon here takes to task. Men cheat themselves as much by setting their hearts on money (though it seems most substantial) as by setting them on dainties. Observe,

I. How he dissuades the covetous man from toiling and tormenting himself (v. 4). "Do not aim to be rich, to raise an estate, and to make what thou hast in abundance more than it is." We must endeavor to live comfortably, and provide for our children and families, according as our rank and condition are, but we must not seek great things. Be not of those that will be rich, that desire it as their chief good and design it as their highest end, 1 Tim. 6:9. Covetous men think it is their wisdom, imagining that if they be rich to such a degree they shall be completely happy. Cease from that wisdom, for it is a mistake; a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses, Lu. 12:15. 1. Those that aim at great things fill their hands with business more than they can grasp, so that their life is both a perfect drudgery and a perpetual hurry; but be not thou such a fool; labour not to be rich. What thou hast, or doest, be master of it, and not a slave to it as those that rise up early, sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness, and all to be rich. Moderate labour, that we may have to give, is our wisdom and duty, Eph. 4:28. Immoderate labour, that we may have to hoard, is our sin and folly. 2. They fill their heads with projects more than they understand, so that their life is a constant toss of care and fear; but do not thou thus vex thyself: Cease from thy own wisdom; go on quietly in the way of thy business, not contriving new ways and setting thy wits to work to find out new inventions. Acquiesce in God's wisdom, and cease from thy own, ch. 3:5, 6.

II. How he dissuades the covetous man from cheating and deceiving himself by an inordinate love and pursuit of that which is vanity and vexation of spirit; for,

1. It is not substantial and satisfying: "Wilt thou be such a fool as to set thy eyes, to cause thy eyes to fly with eagerness and violence, upon that which is not?" Note, (1.) The things of this world are things that are not. They have a real existence in nature and are the real gifts of Providence, but in the kingdom of grace they are things that are not; they are not a happiness and portion for a soul, are not what they promise to be nor what we expect them to be; they are a show, a shadow, a sham upon the soul that trusts to them. They are not, for in a little while they will not be, they will not be ours; they perish in the using; the fashion of them passes away. (2.) It is therefore folly for us to set our eyes upon them, to admire them as the best things, to appropriate them to ourselves as our good things, and to aim at them as our mark at which all our actions are levelled, to fly upon them as the eagle upon her prey. "Wilt thou do a thing so absurd in itself? What thou, a reasonable creature, wilt thou dote upon shadows? The eyes are put for rational and intellectual powers; wilt thou throw those away upon such undeserving objects? To set the hands and feet upon the world is well enough, but not the eyes, the eyes of the mind; those were made to contemplate better things. Wilt thou, my son, that professest religion, put such an affront upon God (towards whom the eyes should ever be) and such an abuse upon thy soul?"

2. It is not durable and abiding. Riches are very uncertain things; certainly they are so: They make themselves wings, and fly away. The more we cause our eyes to fly upon them the more likely they are to fly away from us. (1.) Riches will leave us. Those that hold them ever so fast cannot hold them long; either they must be taken from us or we must be taken from them. The goods are said to flow away as a stream (Job 20:28), here to flee as a bird. (2.) Perhaps they may leave us suddenly, when we have taken a great deal of pains for them and begin to take a great deal of pride and pleasure in them. The covetous man sits hatching upon his wealth, and brooding over it, till it is fledged, as the young ones under the hen, and then it is gone. Or, as if a man should be fond of a flight of wild-fowl that light in his field, and call them his own because they are upon his ground, whereas, if he offers to come near them, they take wing immediately and are gone to another man's field. (3.) The wings they fly away upon are of their own making. They have in themselves the principles of their own corruption, their own moth and rust. They are wasting in their own nature, and like a handful of dust, which, if it be grasped, slips through the fingers. Snow will last awhile, and look pretty, if it be left to lie on the ground where it fell, but, if gathered up and laid in the bosom, it is dissolved and gone immediately. (4.) They go irresistibly and irrecoverably, as an eagle toward heaven, that flies strongly (there is no stopping her), and flies out of sight and out of call (there is no bringing her back); thus do riches leave men, and leave them in grief and vexation if they set their hearts upon them.

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New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org.

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Alphabetical: Cease consideration Do from gain get have it not of out restraint rich show the to wealth wear weary wisdom your yourself

Bible Browser

The Afterwards and Our Hope
'Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. 18. For surely there is an end and thine expectation shall not be cut off.'--PROVERBS xxiii. 17, 18. The Book of Proverbs seldom looks beyond the limits of the temporal, but now and then the mists lift and a wider horizon is disclosed. Our text is one of these exceptional instances, and is remarkable, not only as expressing confidence in the future, but as expressing it in a very striking way. 'Surely there is an end,' says our Authorised Version, …
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Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Three Important Precepts
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A sermon (No. 3449) published on Thursday, March 11th, 1915; Delivered on Lord's Day evening, June 26th 1870, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. "Buy the truth, and sell it not."--Proverbs 23:23. John Bunyan pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to be found all kinds of merchandise, consisting of the pomps and vanities, the lusts and pleasures of this present life and of the flesh. Now all the dealers, when they …
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All the Day Long
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(Admonition 33.). Differently to be admonished are those who are overcome by sudden passion and those who are bound in guilt of set purpose. For those whom sudden passion overcomes are to be admonished to regard themselves as daily set in the warfare of the present life, and to protect the heart, which cannot foresee wounds, with the shield of anxious fear; to dread the hidden darts of the ambushed foe, and, in so dark a contest, to guard with continual attention the inward camp of the soul. For, …
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Secondly, for Thy Words.
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As we follow the narrative, confirmatory evidence of what had preceded springs up at almost every step. It is quite in accordance with the abrupt departure of Jesus from Capernaum, and its motives, that when, so far from finding rest and privacy at Bethsaida (east of the Jordan), a greater multitude than ever had there gathered around Him, which would fain have proclaimed Him King, He resolved on immediate return to the western shore, with the view of seeking a quieter retreat, even though it were …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

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Scripture references: Hebrews 11; Matthew 9:29; 17:20; Mark 10:52; 11:22; Acts 2:38; 3:16; 10:43; 16:30,31; Romans 1:17; 5:1; 10:17; Galatians 2:20. FAITH AND PRACTICE Belief Controls Action.--"As the man is, so is his strength" (Judges 8:21), "For as he thinketh in his heart so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matthew 9:28,29). "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23). The Scriptures place stress upon the fact that …
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OR, THE EXCELLENCY OF A BROKEN HEART: SHOWING THE NATURE, SIGNS, AND PROPER EFFECTS OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT. BEING THE LAST WORKS OF THAT EMINENT PREACHER AND FAITHFUL MINISTER OF JESUS CHRIST, MR. JOHN BUNYAN, OF BEDFORD. WITH A PREFACE PREFIXED THEREUNTO BY AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN LONDON. London: Sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgates, 1692. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. The very excellent preface to this treatise, written by George Cokayn, will inform the reader of …
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Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel T here is a species of the sublime in writing, which seems peculiar to the Scripture, and of which, properly, no subjects but those of divine revelation are capable, With us, things inconsiderable in themselves are elevated by splendid images, which give them an apparent importance beyond what they can justly claim. Thus the poet, when describing a battle among bees, by a judicious selection of epithets …
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