Proverbs — Chapter 10
The proverbs of Solomon:A wise son brings joy to his father;A dull son is his mother’s sorrow.
Ill-gotten wealth is of no avail,But righteousness saves from death.
GOD will not let a righteous person go hungry,But denies the wicked what they crave.
Negligent hands cause poverty,But diligent hands enrich.
He who lays in stores during the summer is a capable son,But he who sleeps during the harvest is an incompetent.
Blessings light upon the head of a righteous person,But lawlessness covers the mouths of the wicked.
The name of a righteous person is invoked in blessing,But the fame of the wicked rots.
Whoever has a wise heart accepts commands,But one whose speech is foolish comes to grief.
Whoever lives blamelessly lives safely,But one who walks a crooked path will be found out.
Whoever winks causes sorrow;One whose speech is foolish comes to grief.
The mouth of a righteous person is a fountain of life,But lawlessness covers the mouths of the wicked.
Hatred stirs up strife,But love covers up all faults.
Wisdom is to be found on the lips of the intelligent,But a rod is ready for the back of the senseless.
The wise store up knowledge;The mouth of a fool is an imminent ruin.
For someone rich, wealth is a fortress;For the poor, poverty is a ruin.
The labor of the righteous makes for life;The produce of the wicked makes for want.
One who follows discipline shows the way to life,But one who ignores reproof leads astray.
One who conceals hatred has lying lips,While one who speaks forth slander is a dullard.
Where there is much talking, there is no lack of transgressing,But one who curbs the tongueatongue Lit. “lips.” shows sense.
The tongue of a righteous person is choice silver,But the mind of the wicked is of little worth.
The lips of a righteous person sustain many,But fools die for lack of sense.
It is the blessing of GOD that enriches,And no toil can increase it.
As mischief is sport for the dullard,So is wisdom for the man of understanding.
What an evildoer plots backfires;What the righteous desire is granted.
When the storm passes a wicked person is gone,But the righteous person is an everlasting foundation.
Like vinegar to the teeth,Like smoke to the eyes,Are sluggards to those who send them on a mission.
The fear of GOD prolongs life,While the years of the wicked will be shortened.
The righteous can look forward to joy,But the hopes of the wicked are doomed.
The way of GOD is a stronghold for a blameless person,But a ruin for evildoers.
The righteous person will never be shaken;The wicked will not inhabit the earth.
The mouth of a righteous person produces wisdom,But the treacherous tongue shall be cut off.
The lips of a righteous person know what is pleasing;The mouth of the wicked [knows] duplicity.
✦ Connected Across Traditions
The Golden Rule
Matthew 7:12
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Hadith (An-Nawawi 13)
“None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”
Mahabharata 5.1517
“One should never do to another what one regards as injurious to oneself.”
Dhammapada 10:1
“All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.”
Impermanence & Letting Go
Dhammapada 20:277
“All conditioned things are impermanent. When one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.”
Tao Te Ching 76
“A man is born gentle and weak. At his death he is hard and stiff. The soft and yielding is the disciple of life.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
Bhagavad Gita 2:22
“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.”
The Path to Wisdom
Dhammapada 20:282
“Wisdom springs from meditation; without meditation wisdom wanes.”
Analects 2:11
“If you study the past and use it to understand the present, you are worthy of being a teacher.”
Tao Te Ching 33
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.”
Quran 39:9
“Are those who know equal to those who do not know?”
Good vs Evil / Light vs Darkness
Yasna 30:3
“Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action.”
John 1:5
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Dhammapada 1:1-2
“Mind is the forerunner of all actions. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows like a shadow.”
Bhagavad Gita 16:21
“There are three gates to self-destructive hell: lust, anger, and greed. Therefore, one must learn to give these up.”