CHAPTER 24

Rescue Those Drawn Toward Death

Chapter 24 closes the 'words of the wise' section with instructions on courage in adversity, the obligation to intervene for those in danger, and a warning against gloating over an enemy's downfall. A short second collection, explicitly labeled 'these also are sayings of the wise,' follows — ending with the book's second visit to the sluggard's overgrown field, this time observed and reflected on firsthand.

1 ‘Be not thou envious against evil men; neither desire to be with them’ — the chapter opens with the same warning as 23:17, now widened from mere envy to the desire for actual companionship with wrongdoers.

2 ‘For their heart studieth oppression, and their lips talk of mischief’ — the reason for avoiding them is given directly: their inner life is oriented, deliberately and habitually, toward harm.

3 ‘Through wisdom is a house builded; and by understanding it is established’ — the image of building recurs (compare 14:1; 9:1), applying wisdom to the practical, structural task of establishing a stable household.

4 ‘And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches’ — knowledge is credited not just with structural stability but with actual abundance filling the rooms once built.

5 ‘A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth might’ — wisdom is equated directly with strength, redefining power in terms of understanding rather than mere physical force.

6 ‘For by wise guidance thou shalt make thy war; and in the multitude of counsellors there is safety’ — nearly identical to 20:18, applying the value of counsel once more to the highest-stakes decision imaginable.

7 ‘Wisdom is too high for a fool: he openeth not his mouth in the gate’ — the fool is excluded not by external barrier but by his own incapacity; the public forum of decision-making (the gate) simply isn't accessible to someone unwilling to pursue wisdom.

8 ‘He that deviseth to do evil, men shall call him a man of mischievous devices’ — reputation is shown following naturally and accurately from habitual intention, not just from action.

9 ‘The thought of foolishness is sin; and the scoffer is an abomination to men’ — foolish scheming is condemned even at the level of thought alone, before it becomes visible action.

10 ‘If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small’ — a bracing, almost diagnostic proverb: how a person holds up under pressure reveals the true measure of their inner strength, not their performance in easier times.

11 ‘Deliver them that are carried away unto death, and those that are ready to be slain see that thou hold back’ — a direct, urgent command to actively intervene on behalf of someone in mortal danger, not merely to avoid causing harm oneself.

12 ‘If thou sayest, Behold, we knew not this: doth not he that weigheth the hearts consider it? ... shall not he render to every man according to his work?’ — claimed ignorance is shown as no defense before a God who weighs hearts directly; willful non-involvement doesn't escape accountability.

13 ‘My son, eat thou honey, for it is good; and the droppings of the honeycomb, which are sweet to thy taste’ — a simple, pleasurable image opens the next short unit, setting up an explicit comparison in the verse that follows.

14 ‘So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul, when thou hast found it; then shall there be a reward, and thy hope shall not be cut off’ — wisdom's effect on the soul is compared directly to honey's sweetness on the tongue — genuinely, tangibly pleasurable, not merely useful.

15 ‘Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the habitation of the righteous; destroy not his resting-place’ — a direct warning against plotting harm to someone's home or place of safety, naming the target's vulnerability explicitly.

16 ‘For a righteous man falleth seven times, and riseth up again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity’ — righteousness is not defined by never failing but by resilience — repeated recovery, in contrast to the wicked's more final collapse.

17 ‘Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thy heart be glad when he is overthrown’ — even justified satisfaction at an enemy's downfall is restrained here; the proverb asks for a character that doesn't need an opponent to suffer in order to feel settled.

18 ‘Lest Jehovah see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him’ — gloating over an enemy's ruin is warned against partly because it risks redirecting God's own corrective attention away from that enemy and, implicitly, toward the one gloating.

19 ‘Fret not thyself because of evildoers; neither be thou envious at the wicked’ — the warning against envy of the wicked (compare 23:17; 24:1) returns a third time in this section, suggesting how persistent and tempting this particular struggle actually is.

20 ‘For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the lamp of the wicked shall be put out’ — the reasoning behind verse 19's command: whatever the wicked seem to have now, it has no durable future.

21 ‘My son, fear thou Jehovah and the king; and company not with them that are given to change’ — reverence for God is paired with respect for legitimate civil authority, and both are set against association with habitual rebels or agitators.

22 ‘For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and the destruction from them both, who knoweth it?’ — the consequences of defying both divine and civil authority are described as arriving without warning, from a source too unpredictable to fully anticipate.

23 ‘These also are sayings of the wise. To have respect of persons in judgment is not good’ — a new, shorter collection begins with its own heading; its first concern, favoritism in judgment, echoes 18:5 and reinforces impartiality as foundational to justice.

24 ‘He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous; peoples shall curse him, nations shall abhor him’ — false acquittal of the guilty is condemned in the strongest social terms — not just wrong, but something that earns collective contempt.

25 ‘But to them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them’ — honest correction, though harder in the moment, is shown earning genuine goodwill in contrast to flattering falsehood.

26 ‘He kisseth the lips who giveth a right answer’ — an honest, well-considered answer is compared to an intimate gesture of affection — truthfulness pictured as a form of genuine care, not mere correctness.

27 ‘Prepare thy work without, and make it ready for thee in the field; and afterwards build thy house’ — practical sequencing advice: secure your livelihood and provision first, then invest in the comforts of home — priorities placed in a wise, sustainable order.

28 ‘Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause; and deceive not with thy lips’ — baseless accusation is condemned alongside outright deceit, both treated as violations of the same basic obligation to truthful speech.

29 ‘Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me; I will render to the man according to his work’ — a direct rejection of personal retaliation, echoing 20:22's command to leave vengeance to God rather than administering it oneself.

30 ‘I went by the field of the sluggard, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding’ — the teacher becomes an eyewitness again (compare chapter 7), grounding the coming description in personal observation rather than abstract warning.

31 ‘And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, the face thereof was covered with nettles, and the stone wall thereof was broken down’ — neglect's visible, concrete results are described in vivid detail — not a single dramatic failure, but the slow accumulation of untended decline.

32 ‘Then I beheld, and considered well; I saw, and received instruction’ — the teacher models the very posture this whole book calls for: careful observation followed by genuine reflection, turning an ordinary sight into a lesson.

33 ‘Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep’ — repeated word for word from 6:10, the sluggard's own rationalizing voice returns, now attached to the specific, visible ruin just described.

34 ‘So shall thy poverty come as a robber, and thy want as an armed man’ — the chapter closes exactly as 6:11 did, the repetition across the book driving home, one final time, how directly small delays compound into real loss.