This verse sits inside the poem's first deliverance, Proverbs 2:12–15.
The departed men's current condition: they enjoy it now. Rejoicing in doing evil, delighting in perversity, the affections have completed their turn.
The father's lecture on searching for wisdom is one long sentence, a 22-verse poem built like an arch. It rises on conditions: if you receive my words, if you incline your ear, if you cry out, if you seek her as silver and search as for hidden treasure (vv. 1–4). It reaches its keystone twice: then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God (v. 5), then you will understand righteousness, justice, equity, every good path (v. 9). And between the two thens sits the verse that keeps the whole structure from becoming a wage agreement: for the LORD gives wisdom (v. 6). The seeking is real and strenuous, mining vocabulary, digging and crying out, and what the seeker finds at the bottom of the mine is not a wage but a Giver, handing over freely what no digging could manufacture. Seek like it depends on the search; receive like the gift it was all along. That is the poem's deep architecture, and the second half shows what the gift does once it arrives: wisdom entering the heart posts two guards, discretion and understanding (vv. 10–11), who deliver the young man from the two great predators of chapters 1 through 9, the perverse man who loves crooked paths (vv. 12–15) and the seductress who has abandoned covenant (vv. 16–19). The poem ends where Israel's hopes always end, in the land: the upright dwell and remain; the wicked are cut off and uprooted (vv. 20–22). Because the chapter is one sentence, no verse in it stands alone, and every member entry below reads its verse as one stone in this arch.
This verse contributes the poem's diagnosis of how far the departure of v. 13 finally goes: all the way down to joy. The men who left uprightness did not remain reluctant exiles; evil became their pleasure, perversity their entertainment, the mirror image of v. 10, where knowledge became pleasant to the soul. That symmetry is the poem's deepest teaching about formation: every life's affections are being trained toward some delight, and the direction of the training decides everything. The fool of 10:23 played at evil as sport; these men have season tickets. For the son, the verse is a diagnostic to carry: watch what a potential companion enjoys, because delight is the truest confession a character makes (and the hardest one to fake).
Related: Proverbs 10:23 · Proverbs 2:10 · Romans 1:32
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.