Frequently read as a promise about someone's children. The Hebrew of the second line is a beatitude, not a guarantee.
Quick answer
A life of integrity leaves something behind for the people who come next. The verse observes an inheritance, and it does not sign a contract about anyone's kids.
Read both lines
The first line uses the same construction that opened chapter 19, a man walking in his integrity, and the participle matters: this is ongoing motion rather than an achievement reached. The second line then looks past him to the generation behind. The Hebrew opens with ashrei, the word that begins the Psalms, "happy" or "blessed are" rather than "God will bless." That is a beatitude form, an observation about a fortunate condition, and it is not the vocabulary of promise. What the verse notices is real and worth wanting: children raised near an honest life inherit something that cannot be purchased.
What it does not mean
This is not a guarantee about outcomes, and it must never be read backward. A verse describing what integrity tends to leave behind cannot be turned into evidence about a parent whose child struggled, went off the rails, or walked away. Proverbs itself refuses that arithmetic. The same book has a father grieving over a foolish son at 17:25, with no suggestion that the father produced him, and it treats raising a person as a pattern rather than a promise at 22:6. Any use of 20:7 that turns a grieving parent into a defendant has inverted it. The verse is looking forward from a life, not backward from an outcome.
Related: Proverbs 19:1 · Proverbs 13:22 · Proverbs 14:26 · Proverbs 22:6
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.