Proverbs 4

A father calls his children, all of them this time, to hear instruction and to lean in for understanding. Listening in this book is never passive; it is attention with intent.

The father's reason for asking attention: what he hands over is good. Doctrine here is not a seminary word; it is teaching worth keeping, and the only wrong response is to walk off and leave it.

The father opens his family album: he was once the young one, tender, cherished in his mother's sight, sitting where his son now sits.

The grandfather starts speaking, and his first request is the same one every lecture makes: hold these words with your heart, keep them, and live.

Two commands, one urgency: acquire wisdom, acquire understanding, and do not drift from the words that point you to her.

Wisdom repays loyalty with protection: stay with her and she preserves you, love her and she keeps you. The relationship runs both directions.

Wisdom holds first place, so make her your first acquisition. Whatever else your life collects, collect understanding, and put it at the top of the list.

Lift wisdom high and she lifts you; embrace her and she brings you honor. What you promote ends up promoting you.

Wisdom's final gift is pictured as coronation: a graceful ornament for the head, a crown of glory delivered into the son's keeping.

Received wisdom tends toward long life: not a bargain being struck, but a father telling his son which road has the fewer funerals.

The father's account of his own work, in two verbs: taught and led. Instruction and example, the classroom and the walk.

The right path holds at every speed: unhindered at a walk, sure-footed at a run. The road, not the runner, is what makes the difference.

Grip instruction the way you would grip a rope over a drop: firmly, and without letting go, because she is not an accessory to your life. She is your life.

Stay off the wrong road entirely. The warning is aimed at the entrance, not the far end, because the entrance is where the decision is still cheap.

Four more commands about one road: avoid it, do not travel it, turn away, keep moving. The repetition is the message; distance is the only winning strategy.

The reason for the detour: the people on that road have appetites running in reverse. Evil is not their lapse; it is their rest, and they lie awake without it.

Wickedness has become their food and violence their drink: not occasional indulgences but the daily table, the thing they live on.

The just walk a road lit like sunrise, and the light does not fade with the miles. It grows, brighter and brighter, toward full day.

The other road is darkness, and its cruelest feature is ignorance: its travelers keep falling and never learn over what.

The lecture begins at the ear: give these words your attention, and bend toward them. Leaning in is the body's way of choosing what it will hear.

Keep the words where you can see them, and store them at the center: the heart's midst, where nothing arrives by accident.

The father's words are worth the storage: life to the one who finds them, and health that reaches the whole body.

Guard your heart above everything you guard, because the heart is the wellspring: everything your life produces flows up from that one source.

The first outlet downstream of the heart is the mouth: put crooked speech away from you, and put it far.

Second outlet: the eyes. Look straight down the road you have chosen, because the eyes steer the feet, and a life drifts toward whatever it watches.

Third outlet: the feet. Weigh the path before walking it, and your ways gain solid footing; considered steps become an established road.

The lecture's last word to the feet: no swerving, right or left, and any foot that has strayed toward evil gets removed, promptly.