Lectionary Calendar
Wednesday, April 30th, 2025
the Second Week after Easter
Attention!
StudyLight.org has pledged to help build churches in Uganda. Help us with that pledge and support pastors in the heart of Africa.
Click here to join the effort!

Read the Bible

THE MESSAGE

Proverbs 4:10

Dear friend, take my advice; it will add years to your life. I'm writing out clear directions to Wisdom Way, I'm drawing a map to Righteous Road. I don't want you ending up in blind alleys, or wasting time making wrong turns. Hold tight to good advice; don't relax your grip. Guard it well—your life is at stake! Don't take Wicked Bypass; don't so much as set foot on that road. Stay clear of it; give it a wide berth. Make a detour and be on your way.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Children;   Wisdom;   Young Men;   Thompson Chain Reference - Call, Divine;   God's;   Wisdom;   Wisdom-Folly;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Life, Natural;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Teacher;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Proverbs, Book of;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Proverbs book of;  

Encyclopedias:

- The Jewish Encyclopedia - Life;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for February 4;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Listen, my son. Accept my words,and you will live many years.
Hebrew Names Version
Listen, my son, and receive my sayings. The years of your life will be many.
King James Version
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many.
English Standard Version
Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.
New Century Version
My child, listen and accept what I say. Then you will have a long life.
New English Translation
Listen, my child, and accept my words, so that the years of your life will be many.
Amplified Bible
Hear, my son, and accept my sayings, And the years of your life will be many.
New American Standard Bible
Listen, my son, and accept my sayings, And the years of your life will be many.
World English Bible
Listen, my son, and receive my sayings. The years of your life will be many.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Heare, my sonne, & receiue my wordes, and the yeeres of thy life shalbe many.
Legacy Standard Bible
Hear, my son, and receive my sayingsAnd the years of your life will be many.
Berean Standard Bible
Listen, my son, and receive my words, and the years of your life will be many.
Contemporary English Version
My child, if you listen and obey my teachings, you will live a long time.
Complete Jewish Bible
Listen, my son, receive what I say, and the years of your life will be many.
Darby Translation
Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of thy life shall be multiplied.
Easy-to-Read Version
Son, listen to me. Do what I say, and you will live a long time.
George Lamsa Translation
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of your life shall be many.
Good News Translation
Listen to me, my child. Take seriously what I am telling you, and you will live a long life.
Lexham English Bible
Listen, my child, take my sayings, and the years of your life shall be great.
Literal Translation
Oh my son, hear and receive my sayings, and the years of your life shall be many.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Heare my sonne, and receaue my wordes, that the yeares of thy life maye be many.
American Standard Version
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; And the years of thy life shall be many.
Bible in Basic English
Give ear, O my son, and let your heart be open to my sayings; and long life will be yours.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many.
King James Version (1611)
Heare, O my sonne, and receiue my sayings: and the yeeres of thy life shalbe many.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Heare my sonne, and receaue my wordes, and the yeres of thy life shalbe many.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Hear, my son, and receive my words; and the years of thy life shall be increased, that the resources of thy life may be many.
English Revised Version
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Mi sone, here thou, and take my wordis; that the yeris of lijf be multiplied to thee.
Update Bible Version
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; And the years of your life shall be many.
Webster's Bible Translation
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many.
New King James Version
Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, And the years of your life will be many.
New Living Translation
My child, listen to me and do as I say, and you will have a long, good life.
New Life Bible
Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many.
New Revised Standard
Hear, my child, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, and they will multiply to thee the years of life.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Hear, O my son, and receive my words, that years of life may be multiplied to thee.
Revised Standard Version
Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.
Young's Literal Translation
Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, And years of life [are] multiplied to thee.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Hear, my son, and accept my sayings And the years of your life will be many.

Contextual Overview

1 Listen, friends, to some fatherly advice; sit up and take notice so you'll know how to live. I'm giving you good counsel; don't let it go in one ear and out the other. 3When I was a boy at my father's knee, the pride and joy of my mother, He would sit me down and drill me: "Take this to heart. Do what I tell you—live! Sell everything and buy Wisdom! Forage for Understanding! Don't forget one word! Don't deviate an inch! Never walk away from Wisdom—she guards your life; love her—she keeps her eye on you. Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom! Write this at the top of your list: Get Understanding! Throw your arms around her—believe me, you won't regret it; never let her go—she'll make your life glorious. She'll garland your life with grace, she'll festoon your days with beauty." 10Dear friend, take my advice; it will add years to your life. I'm writing out clear directions to Wisdom Way, I'm drawing a map to Righteous Road. I don't want you ending up in blind alleys, or wasting time making wrong turns. Hold tight to good advice; don't relax your grip. Guard it well—your life is at stake! Don't take Wicked Bypass; don't so much as set foot on that road. Stay clear of it; give it a wide berth. Make a detour and be on your way.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

my: Proverbs 8:10, Proverbs 19:20, Job 22:22, Jeremiah 9:20, John 3:32, John 3:33, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Timothy 1:15

the: Proverbs 3:2, Proverbs 3:16, Deuteronomy 5:16, Deuteronomy 6:2

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 11:21 - your days Psalms 119:9 - shall Proverbs 4:22 - life Proverbs 23:19 - and guide Jeremiah 35:8 - General John 17:8 - received

Cross-References

Genesis 3:13
"The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."
Genesis 4:9
God said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "How should I know? Am I his babysitter?"
Genesis 4:10
God said, "What have you done! The voice of your brother's blood is calling to me from the ground. From now on you'll get nothing but curses from this ground; you'll be driven from this ground that has opened its arms to receive the blood of your murdered brother. You'll farm this ground, but it will no longer give you its best. You'll be a homeless wanderer on Earth."
Genesis 9:5
"But your own lifeblood I will avenge; I will avenge it against both animals and other humans.
Genesis 18:20
God continued, "The cries of the victims in Sodom and Gomorrah are deafening; the sin of those cities is immense. I'm going down to see for myself, see if what they're doing is as bad as it sounds. Then I'll know."
Exodus 3:7
God said, "I've taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I've heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
Numbers 35:33
"Don't pollute the land in which you live. Murder pollutes the land. The land can't be cleaned up of the blood of murder except through the blood of the murderer.
Joshua 7:19
Joshua spoke to Achan, "My son, give glory to God , the God of Israel. Make your confession to him. Tell me what you did. Don't keep back anything from me."
Job 16:18
"O Earth, don't cover up the wrong done to me! Don't muffle my cry! There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me, in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name— My Champion, my Friend, while I'm weeping my eyes out before God. I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor. "Only a few years are left before I set out on the road of no return."
Isaiah 5:7
Do you get it? The vineyard of God -of-the-Angel-Armies is the country of Israel. All the men and women of Judah are the garden he was so proud of. He looked for a crop of justice and saw them murdering each other. He looked for a harvest of righteousness and heard only the moans of victims.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings,.... Some think David is still speaking to his son Solomon, or Solomon continues relating what his father said to him; though I rather think these are Solomon's words to his son, to everyone of his children that came to him for instruction, or he took upon him to teach; whom he advises to listen to what he had further to say, and to embrace, and not reject, his doctrines;

and the years of thy life shall be many; see Proverbs 3:1; long life here, and length of days for ever and ever, or eternal life hereafter; which must be a very forcible argument to engage attention to his sayings.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The counsel which has come to him, in substance, from his father. Compare it with 2 Samuel 23:2 etc.; 1 Chronicles 28:9; 1 Chronicles 29:17; Psalms 15:1-5; Psalms 24:1-10; Psalms 37:0.

Proverbs 4:7

Or, “The beginning of wisdom is - get wisdom.” To seek is to find, to desire is to obtain.

Proverbs 4:12

The ever-recurring parable of the journey of life. In the way of wisdom the path is clear and open, obstacles disappear; in the quickest activity (“when thou runnest”) there is no risk of falling.

Proverbs 4:13

She is thy life - Another parallel between personified Wisdom in this book and the Incarnate Wisdom in John 1:4.

Proverbs 4:16

A fearful stage of debasement. Sin is the condition without which there can be no repose.

Proverbs 4:17

i. e., Bread and wine gained by unjust deeds. Compare Amos 2:8. A less probable interpretation is, “They eat wickedness as bread, and drink violence as wine.” Compare Job 15:16; Job 34:7.

Proverbs 4:18

Shining ... shineth - The two Hebrew words are different; the first having the sense of bright or clear. The beauty of a cloudless sunshine growing on, shining as it goes, to the full and perfect day, is chosen as the fittest figure of the ever increasing brightness of the good man’s life. Compare the marginal reference.

Proverbs 4:19

Compare our Lord’s teaching John 11:10; John 12:35.

Proverbs 4:20

The teacher speaks again in his own person.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Proverbs 4:10. The years of thy life shall be many. — Vice and intemperance impair the health and shorten the days of the wicked; while true religion, sobriety, and temperance, prolong them. The principal part of our diseases springs from "indolence, intemperance, and disorderly passions." Religion excites to industry, promotes sober habits, and destroys evil passions, and harmonizes the soul; and thus, by preventing many diseases, necessarily prolongs life.


 
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile