This verse sits inside the closing movement of the father's lecture on wisdom and the neighbor, Proverbs 3:21–35. The New Testament quotes it twice, at James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5.
Quick answer
The LORD answers scorn with scorn and meets humility with grace. Whoever mocks his way through life finds God unimpressed; whoever comes low finds Him generous.
Read the whole unit
The father's lecture on wisdom and the neighbor moves in three sweeps. First, security (vv. 21–26): keep sound wisdom in view and the results are bodily and immediate, safe steps, unafraid nights, sweet sleep, because "the LORD will be your confidence." Second, the neighbor (vv. 27–31): five consecutive "do nots" that bring wisdom down from the cosmos of the preceding poem to the person next door. Do not withhold good that is owed, do not delay it until tomorrow, do not plot against the neighbor who trusts you, do not pick fights, and do not envy the violent man who seems to be winning. Third, the reasons (vv. 32–35): four verses that ground neighbor-ethics in the LORD's own stances, His abomination and His intimacy, His curse and His blessing, His scorn and His grace, and the divergent inheritances of the wise and the foolish. Some scholars divide the passage at v. 27, treating the neighbor commands as their own unit; the flow of thought holds together as one lecture, since the "do nots" rest directly on the security just described (a person confident in the LORD can afford to be generous and unenvious) and the closing verses supply the reasons for both halves. This entry set treats 3:21–35 as one lecture and notes the boundary question honestly here, once.
What this verse contributes
The scorner is positioned above everything, mocking from the balcony, too superior to learn; the LORD meets him at his own game. Meanwhile grace, favor that is not wages, flows toward the humble, and the verse is nearly unique in Proverbs for how explicitly it names grace as the LORD's gift to a posture that can offer Him nothing. Standing at the end of a lecture about neighbors and envy, it declares the economy underneath everything: God is not hiring the impressive. He is giving to the low.
Why translations differ
James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 both quote this verse as "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." The second line matches Proverbs exactly; the first differs because the apostles quoted the ancient Greek translation, which rendered the scorners as "the proud." The Hebrew and Greek forms make the same claim from different angles.
From this side of the cross
Grace was never a New Testament invention; it was the LORD's posture toward the humble all along, and the cross is where that posture spent itself in full. The low place is still where the gift is handed out.
Related: James 4:6–10 · 1 Peter 5:5–7 · Luke 18:9–14
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.