CHAPTER 14

She Builds Her House — Wisdom in the Everyday

Chapter 14 ranges widely — from a single opening image of a woman building or destroying her own household, through anger, poverty, national righteousness, and the fear of the LORD as a recurring fountain of life. It is one of the longer chapters in the central collection, and one of the most socially aware, repeatedly noticing how the poor and the wronged are actually treated.

1 ‘Every wise woman buildeth her house; but the foolish plucketh it down with her own hands’ — the chapter opens with a striking image of agency: the same household can be built up or torn down by the very hands meant to tend it.

2 ‘He that walketh in his uprightness feareth Jehovah; but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him’ — daily conduct, not just belief, is treated as the real evidence of whether a person actually reveres God.

3 ‘In the mouth of the foolish is a rod for his pride; but the lips of the wise shall preserve them’ — the fool's own boastful speech becomes the very instrument of his correction, while the wise are kept safe by the restraint of theirs.

4 ‘Where no oxen are, the crib is clean; but much increase is by the strength of the ox’ — a plain, almost homely proverb: avoiding mess by avoiding productive work isn't actually a gain — real increase requires the inconvenience that comes with it.

5 ‘A faithful witness will not lie; but a false witness uttereth lies’ — stated almost as a tautology, but the point is serious: truthfulness is meant to be so basic to character that it requires no further qualification.

6 ‘A scoffer seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not; but knowledge is easy unto him that hath understanding’ — the scoffer's own posture, not a lack of access, is what blocks the search; wisdom resists a mocking approach even while it opens easily to a humble one.

7 ‘Go into the presence of a foolish man, and thou shalt not perceive in him the lips of knowledge’ — a blunt piece of practical advice: don't expect insight from a source that has already shown it has none to offer.

8 ‘The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way; but the folly of fools is deceit’ — self-awareness is named as the prudent person's specific skill, while the fool's specialty runs in the opposite direction, toward self-deception.

9 ‘Fools make a mock at sin; but among the upright there is favor’ — treating wrongdoing as a joke is set directly against the goodwill that surrounds those who take it seriously.

10 ‘The heart knoweth its own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with its joy’ — an honest acknowledgment that some inner experience — both pain and joy — is simply not fully shareable, no matter how close the relationship.

11 ‘The house of the wicked shall be overthrown; but the tent of the upright shall flourish’ — notably, the wicked get the more permanent-sounding structure (a house) and the upright a mere tent, yet it is the tent that is said to flourish — durability depends on character, not architecture.

12 ‘There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death’ — repeated again in 16:25, this may be the single most important warning in the whole book about the limits of self-assessment; feeling right is not the same as being right.

13 ‘Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of mirth is heaviness’ — an unusually clear-eyed observation that outward emotion doesn't always match inward reality, and that some laughter is covering something else entirely.

14 ‘The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways; and a good man shall be satisfied from himself’ — both receive the natural fruit of their own inner life — one a hollow return, the other a genuine, self-sustaining satisfaction.

15 ‘The simple believeth every word; but the prudent man looketh well to his going’ — credulity and careful attention are set against each other; wisdom includes healthy discernment about what and whom to believe.

16 ‘A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil; but the fool beareth himself insolently, and is confident’ — the fool's misplaced confidence is treated as more dangerous than the wise man's caution; appropriate fear is reframed as a form of wisdom, not weakness.

17 ‘He that is soon angry will deal foolishly; and a man of wicked devices is hated’ — quick temper and calculated scheming are named as two different roads to the same destination — folly and enmity, respectively.

18 ‘The simple inherit folly; but the prudent are crowned with knowledge’ — inheritance language suggests these outcomes aren't random but the natural, expected result of a settled way of life.

19 ‘The evil bow before the good; and the wicked, at the gates of the righteous’ — a promise of eventual vindication; whatever the present arrangement looks like, the proverb anticipates a reversal in which character ultimately determines standing.

20 ‘The poor is hated even of his own neighbor; but the rich hath many friends’ — stated without approval, as a clear-eyed observation of how people actually behave, not as an endorsement of how they should.

21 ‘He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth; but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he’ — the very unfairness just described in verse 20 is immediately named as sin when it involves contempt, and mercy toward the poor is called blessing rather than mere kindness.

22 ‘Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good’ — mercy and truth are treated as things a person can actively plan and pursue, just as deliberately as evil can be devised.

23 ‘In all labor there is profit; but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury’ — a plain warning against substituting talk for actual work; ideas and intentions alone produce nothing without labor behind them.

24 ‘The crown of the wise is their riches; but the folly of fools is only folly’ — whatever the wise gain becomes an ornament that enhances them further, while whatever the foolish produce only compounds their foolishness.

25 ‘A true witness delivereth souls; but a deceitful witness uttereth lies’ — truthful testimony is credited with the power to actually save someone, raising the stakes of honesty in legal or public matters well beyond mere personal integrity.

26 ‘In the fear of Jehovah is strong confidence; and his children shall have a place of refuge’ — reverence for God is described as producing a stability that extends protectively to the next generation as well.

27 ‘The fear of Jehovah is a fountain of life, that one may depart from the snares of death’ — nearly identical to 13:14, the repetition underscores how central this single idea is to the entire book's understanding of what actually keeps a person safe.

28 ‘In the multitude of people is the king's glory; but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince’ — a rare political proverb: a ruler's real strength lies in a thriving, growing population, not merely in personal power or wealth.

29 ‘He that is slow to anger is of great understanding; but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly’ — patience is directly equated with understanding itself, not merely listed as a separate virtue alongside it.

30 ‘A sound heart is the life of the flesh; but envy is the rottenness of the bones’ — emotional and physical health are again tied together; envy specifically is singled out as corrosive at the deepest, most literal level.

31 ‘He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker; but he that hath mercy on the needy honoreth him’ — how the poor are treated is framed as a direct statement about God himself, since he is named as their Maker as much as anyone else's.

32 ‘The wicked is thrust down in his evil-doing; but the righteous hath a refuge in his death’ — the chapter briefly looks beyond ordinary life circumstances to the very moment of death itself, finding the same contrast holding even there.

33 ‘Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding; but that which is in the inward part of fools is made known’ — wisdom is content to remain quietly settled, while folly, by contrast, seems compelled to eventually reveal itself.

34 ‘Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people’ — the individual-focused proverbs of this chapter zoom out to the national level — the same moral logic that governs a person's life is applied to an entire people.

35 ‘The king's favor is toward a servant that dealeth wisely; but his wrath will be against him that causeth shame’ — the chapter closes back at the royal court, where wisdom and folly are shown to have direct, tangible consequences on standing and favor.