One of the most misused verses in the chapter, and one that goes badly wrong if read as a guarantee.
Quick answer
A general observation about the trajectory of a well-lived life. It is not a promise of protection, and the rest of Scripture would not let it be.
Read both lines
The NKJV footnotes "trouble" as harm, and the sense is of calamity that overtakes and undoes someone. What the verse observes is real and ordinary: a person who deals honestly, keeps their word, and avoids ruinous company sidesteps entire categories of disaster that a dishonest life walks straight into. Read alongside verse 13, which says the righteous comes through trouble rather than avoiding it, the chapter's own position becomes clear. Trouble arrives; it does not have the last word.
What it does not mean
This verse does not promise that a believer will be spared hardship, and it cannot be read backward to explain anyone's suffering. Jesus told His disciples plainly, "In the world you will have tribulation" (John 16:33), and Scripture is full of righteous people in serious trouble. Job's friends built their entire case on running a proverb like this one in reverse, and God rebuked them for it (Job 42:7). Used as a guarantee, the verse fails at the first diagnosis and wounds the person holding it; used as this book uses it, it says that a life of integrity is genuinely less exposed, which is true and worth knowing and not the same thing as immunity.
Related: John 16:33 · Job 42:7 · Proverbs 12:13 · Proverbs 24:16
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.