Quick answer
Speech does the damage and speech does the rescue. The same instrument runs both ways.
Read both lines
The first line quotes the wicked directly, and the quotation is the gang's invitation from chapter 1, where the same ambush language appeared. What makes the verse worth its place is the second half, because the answer to violent speech is not force. It is a mouth. The upright deliver by speaking, and the pronoun leaves room for both readings: their words deliver themselves and they deliver others. Set against a book that spends chapters warning about the tongue, this is the balancing observation that speech is also how people get saved from things.
Related: Proverbs 1:11 · Proverbs 11:9 · Proverbs 12:18
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.