Proverbs 10:21
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The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of judgment.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
21 The lips of the righteous edify many; But fools die through want of understanding.
Open source ↗Hitherto we have been in the porch or preface to the proverbs, here they begin. They are short but weighty sentences; most of them are distichs, two sentences in one verse, illustrating each other; but it is seldom that there is any coherence between the verses, much less any thread of discourse, and therefore in these chapters we need not attempt to reduce the contents to their proper heads, the several sentences will appear best in their own places. The scope of them all is to set before us good and evil, the blessing and the curse. Many of the proverbs in this chapter relate to the good government of the tongue, without which men's religion is vain.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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Why should the fool have money in his hand with no intention of buying wisdom?
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the LORD.
When anyone hears the message of the kingdom but does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
A soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.
He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.
and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
So they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread.
Speaking rashly is like a piercing sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.