Proverbs 17

A crust in peace beats a banquet in a war zone. The verse prices atmosphere above menu.

Competence can outrank birth. The verse describes a household where the outsider ends up managing the heir.

Metal gets heated to find out what is actually in it. The verse says God does the equivalent with people, and the point of refining is not destruction.

People listen to what suits them. The verse observes that an audience is a kind of confession.

Mockery of a poor person is an insult aimed past them at God. The verse routes it upward, exactly as 14:31 did.

Honor runs both directions between generations. Grandparents wear their grandchildren; children are lifted by a father worth having.

A mismatch in both directions. Fine words sit oddly on a fool, and lies sit far worse on a ruler.

To the man holding it, a bribe looks like a jewel that opens every door. The verse describes his view, and the chapter answers it fifteen verses later.

Not broadcasting someone's failure is an act of love. Repeating it is how friendships end, and the verse treats the choice as deliberate.

One word lands on a person who can hear. A hundred blows accomplish nothing on a person who cannot, and the ratio is the verse's whole argument.

A man committed to defiance eventually meets someone who does not negotiate. The verse states an outcome without naming who sends the messenger.

Given a choice between a grieving bear and a committed fool, take the bear. The verse means it as more than a joke.

Repay kindness with harm and the harm takes up residence. The verse describes something that settles in rather than something that strikes.

A quarrel starts as a trickle through a crack and ends as a flood. The counsel is to plug it early, because later there is nothing to plug.

The verse is about a corrupt courtroom: a judge who calls a guilty man innocent, or an innocent man guilty. Both pervert the one institution meant to protect people.

He has the money and no appetite. The verse asks why someone would fund an education he has no intention of receiving.

Friendship is defined by its constancy, not its warmth. The second line says what a brother is for, and it is the hard days.

Guaranteeing someone else's debt is filed here as a failure of judgment. The book has said this four times and will say it once more.

The two loves come together. And the second line is about a man building something conspicuous, which the verse treats as asking for trouble.

A crooked interior and a crooked mouth arrive at the same place. The verse pairs the source and its output.

A parent's grief over a grown child who will not listen. The verse states it without offering a remedy.

Gladness works on the body like a remedy. And a crushed spirit does real physical damage, which the verse states as a fact rather than a fault.

The chapter's answer to verse 8. What looked like a precious stone to its owner is named here as the corruption of justice.

Wisdom is close enough to see. The fool is scanning the horizon for it and missing what is in front of him.

The grief of verse 21 again, now including the mother. The verse names both parents and adds nothing to soften it.

Punishing someone for doing right is named, plainly, as not good. The verse closes the chapter's run on corrupted justice.

Knowing more produces fewer words, not more. The verse pairs restraint in speech with a settled temperament.

The chapter ends on a joke with a serious edge. Silence will make a fool look wise, which says something about both silence and talking.