Proverbs 22-24: The Cure
Friday, August 18, 2017
The cure for what ails us comes through the discipline to follow the rules laid out for us. The writers remind us of the basic tenets of good living. Later in the Gospel story, Jesus’ words and actions remind us that God’s wisdom is so often the reverse of our own.
It’s wrong, very wrong,
to go along with injustice.
Whoever whitewashes the wicked
gets a black mark in the history books,
But whoever exposes the wicked
will be thanked and rewarded.
The practical precepts of Proverbs follow.
- Don’t walk on the poor just because they’re poor, and don’t use your position to crush the weak . . .
- Don’t hang out with angry people; don’t keep company with hotheads . . .
- Don’t gamble on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or hock your house against a lucky chance . . .
- Don’t stealthily move back the boundary lines staked out long ago by your ancestors . . .
- Observe people who are good at their work—skilled workers are always in demand and admired . . .
- When you go out to dinner with an influential person,mind your manners . . .
- Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich; restrain yourself!
- Don’t accept a meal from a tightwad; don’t expect anything special . . .
- Don’t bother talking sense to fools; they’ll only poke fun at your words . . .
- Don’t cheat orphans out of their property, for they have a powerful Advocate
who will go to bat for them . . . - Give yourselves to disciplined instruction; open your ears to tested knowledge . . .
- Don’t be afraid to correct your young ones . . .
- Dear child, if you become wise, I’ll be one happy parent . . .
- Don’t for a minute envy careless rebels . . .
- Oh listen, dear child—become wise; point your life in the right direction. Don’t drink too much wine and get drunk; don’t eat too much food and get fat . . .
- Listen with respect to the father who raised you, and when your mother grows old, don’t neglect her . . .
- A loose woman can get you in deep trouble fast . . .
- Don’t judge wine by its label, or its bouquet, or its full-bodied flavor . . .
- Don’t envy bad people . . .
- It takes wisdom to build a house, and understanding to set it on a firm foundation . . .
- It’s better to be wise than strong . . .
- Wise conversation is way over the head of fools . . .
- Fools incubate sin; cynics desecrate beauty . . .
- If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place . . .
- Rescue the perishing; don’t hesitate to step in and help . . .
- Knowledge and wisdom for your soul—get that and your future’s secured,
your hope is on solid rock . . . - Don’t interfere with good people’s lives; don’t try to get the best of them . . .
- Don’t laugh when your enemy falls; don’t crow over his collapse . . .
- Don’t bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked . . .
- Fear God, dear child—respect your leaders . . .
Heavy doses of humility and generosity bring us the cure that heals all that divides us from God and on another. When we compare varying translations of these verses, we find the ingredients of the remedy that restores us.
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