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Proverbs of Solomon
Proverbs › Chapter 15 › Proverbs 15:6

What Does Proverbs 15:6 Mean?

In the house of the righteous there is much treasure,But in the revenue of the wicked is trouble.Proverbs 15:6 · NKJV

Quick answer

Righteousness tends to build a household that holds together; wickedness poisons its own income. The contrast is not size of pile but what comes attached to it.

Read both lines

The lines are deliberately mismatched, and that is the teaching. The righteous get a "house," a whole household with treasure stored in it, while the wicked get "revenue," money arriving, with trouble bound up in the arrival. The Hebrew word for that trouble is the same root the chapter uses later of the greedy man who "troubles his own house" (15:27), so the two verses describe one process from two angles. What the wicked have is not nothing; it is income with a defect built in, wealth that costs the house it was supposed to furnish. The proverb observes a tendency under God's government rather than issuing a verdict on any particular family's bank balance.

Related: Proverbs 15:16 · Proverbs 15:27 · Proverbs 10:22

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.