Read & explore together
Warnings against Foolishness
Proverbs 6:1–19 gives a series of warnings in the form of fatherly instruction. It moves from careless promises, to laziness, to deceitful behaviour, and ends with a list of attitudes and actions that Yahweh hates.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
This passage is presented as wisdom addressed to “my son”. It gives urgent advice, asks direct questions, uses examples from daily life such as a pledge, an ant, and a hunter’s snare, and finishes with a numbered saying about what Yahweh hates. The passage itself is instruction, not a story event.
Proverbs 6:1–19Main takeaway
This passage teaches that wise living avoids reckless promises, lazy habits, deceit, violence, lies, and behaviour that creates discord.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Urgent action over reckless pledgesThe passage begins with a warning about becoming “collateral” or making a pledge for another person.
Explanation
The passage begins with a warning about becoming “collateral” or making a pledge for another person. The danger is that a person can be trapped by his own words. The advice is urgent: humble yourself, press your plea, and seek freedom quickly, like escaping from a hunter’s hand or a snare.
02The ant and the sluggardNext, the reader is told to learn from the ant. The ant has no chief, overseer, or ruler, yet it prepares food in the right season.
Explanation
Next, the reader is told to learn from the ant. The ant has no chief, overseer, or ruler, yet it prepares food in the right season. This is set against the “sluggard”, who keeps sleeping. A little more rest may seem small, but the warning is that poverty and scarcity can arrive suddenly.
03The worthless personThe passage then describes a “worthless person” as someone marked by a perverse mouth, secretive signals, inner perverseness, continual evil plans, and sowing discord.
Explanation
The passage then describes a “worthless person” as someone marked by a perverse mouth, secretive signals, inner perverseness, continual evil plans, and sowing discord. The concern is not only outward behaviour but also what is in the heart. The result given is sudden calamity and being broken without remedy.
04Seven things Yahweh hatesThe final saying names attitudes and actions that Yahweh hates. They include arrogance, lying, shedding innocent blood, wicked schemes, eagerness for mischief, false witness, and sowing discord among brothers.
Explanation
The final saying names attitudes and actions that Yahweh hates. They include arrogance, lying, shedding innocent blood, wicked schemes, eagerness for mischief, false witness, and sowing discord among brothers. The list gathers the passage’s warnings together, showing that foolishness is not merely impractical but morally offensive before Yahweh.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01Why does the passage treat a spoken pledge as so serious?
Look at how often the words of the mouth are mentioned and what danger they create for the speaker.
02What exactly does the ant do that the sluggard fails to do?
Compare the ant’s preparation in the proper season with the sluggard’s repeated sleep and the result that follows.
03Which items in Yahweh’s hated list match the earlier description of the worthless person?
Notice the repeated ideas of lying, evil schemes, and sowing discord across both parts of the passage.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Proverbs 6:1–19
1My son, if you have become collateral for your neighbor, if you have struck your hands in pledge for a stranger,
2you are trapped by the words of your mouth; you are ensnared with the words of your mouth.
3Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself, since you have come into the hand of your neighbor. Go, humble yourself. Press your plea with your neighbor.
4Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.
5Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
6Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise;
7which having no chief, overseer, or ruler,
8provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.
9How long will you sleep, sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep?
10A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep—
11so your poverty will come as a robber, and your scarcity as an armed man.
12A worthless person, a man of iniquity, is he who walks with a perverse mouth,
13who winks with his eyes, who signals with his feet, who motions with his fingers,
14in whose heart is perverseness, who devises evil continually, who always sows discord.
15Therefore his calamity will come suddenly. He will be broken suddenly, and that without remedy.
16There are six things which Yahweh hates; yes, seven which are an abomination to him:
17arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,
18a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are swift in running to mischief,
19a false witness who utters lies, and he who sows discord among brothers.