The Book of Proverbs (2020 Edition) E-Book

Brian Simmons

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Passion Translation
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 184

Beschreibung

The book of Proverbs is full of poetic beauty and subtle nuances, which are ripe with meaning and tucked inside metaphors, symbols, and imagery. Written by King Solomon, Proverbs is a gift from above.   Our generous Father is ready to fill our hearts with all we need to succeed in life and reign in Christ. Enrolling in the divine seminary of wisdom and revelation found in Proverbs, we receive heavenly insight into our destinies, relationships, careers, finances, and every other aspect of our lives.   It is time to rise up as rulers-to-be for God's glory. His ancient wisdom fills the pages of Proverbs, where a greater understanding awaits us.   Within these sayings will be found the revelation of wisdom and the impartation of spiritual understanding. Use them as keys to unlock the treasures of true knowledge. Proverbs 1:2  

Leseprobe

The Passion Translation®

Proverbs: Wisdom from Above

Published by BroadStreet Publishing® Group, LLC

BroadStreetPublishing.com

ThePassionTranslation.com

The Passion Translation is a registered trademark of Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc.

Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except as noted below, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The text from Proverbs: Wisdom from Above may be quoted in any form (written, visual, electronic, or audio), up to and inclusive of 40 verses or less, without written permission from the publisher, provided that the verses quoted do not amount to a complete chapter of the Bible, nor do verses quoted account for 20 percent or more of the total text of the work in which they are quoted, and the verses are not being quoted in a commentary or other biblical reference work. When quoted, one of the following credit lines must appear on the copyright page of the work:

Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®, Proverbs: Wisdom from Above. Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.

All Scripture quotations are from The Passion Translation®, Proverbs: Wisdom from Above. Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.

When quotations from The Passion Translation (TPT) are used in non-saleable media, such as church bulletins, sermons, newsletters, or projected in worship settings, a complete copyright notice is not required, but the initials TPT must appear at the end of each quotation.

Quotations in excess of these guidelines or other permission requests must be approved in writing by BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC. Please send requests through the contact form at ThePassionTranslation.com/permissions.

For information about bulk sales or customized editions of The Passion Translation, please contact [email protected].

The publisher and TPT team have worked diligently and prayerfully to present this version of The Passion Translation Bible with excellence and accuracy. If you find a mistake in the Bible text or footnotes, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

978-1-4245-6342-5 (paperback)

978-1-4245-6343-2 (e-book)

Printed in the United States of America

21 22 23 24 25 5 4 3 2 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Information

A Note to Readers

Proverbs

Your Personal Invitation to Follow Jesus

About the Translator

A NOTE TO READERS

It would be impossible to calculate how many lives have been changed forever by the power of the Bible, the living Word of God! My own life was transformed because I believed the message contained in Scripture about Jesus, the Savior.

To hold the Bible dear to your heart is the sacred obsession of every true follower of Jesus. Yet to go even further and truly understand the Bible is how we gain light and truth to live by. Did you catch the word understand? People everywhere say the same thing: “I want to understand God’s Word, not just read it.”

Thankfully, as English speakers, we have a plethora of Bible translations, commentaries, study guides, devotionals, churches, and Bible teachers to assist us. Our hearts crave to know God—to not just know about him, but to know him as intimately as we possibly can in this life. This is what makes Bible translations so valuable, because each one will hopefully lead us into new discoveries of God’s character. I believe God is committed to giving us truth in a package we can understand and apply, so I thank God for every translation of God’s Word that we have.

God’s Word does not change, but over time languages definitely do, thus the need for updated and revised translations of the Bible. Translations give us the words God spoke through his servants, but words can be poor containers for revelation because they leak! Meaning is influenced by culture, background, and many other details. Just imagine how differently the Hebrew authors of the Old Testament saw the world three thousand years ago from the way we see it today!

Even within one language and culture, meanings of words change from one generation to the next. For example, many contemporary Bible readers would be quite surprised to find unicorns are mentioned nine times in the King James Version (KJV). Here’s one instance in Isaiah 34:7: “And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.” This isn’t a result of poor translation, but rather an example of how our culture, language, and understanding of the world has shifted over the past few centuries. So, it is important that we have a modern English text of the Bible that releases revelation and truth into our hearts. The Passion Translation (TPT) is committed to bringing forth the potency of God’s Word in relevant, contemporary vocabulary that doesn’t distract from its meaning or distort it in any way. So many people have told us that they are falling in love with the Bible again as they read TPT.

We often hear the statement, “I just want a word-for-word translation that doesn’t mess it up or insert a bias.” That’s a noble desire. But a word-for-word translation would be nearly unreadable. It is simply impossible to translate one Hebrew word for one English word. Hebrew is built from triliteral consonant roots. Biblical Hebrew had no vowels or punctuation. And Koine Greek, although wonderfully articulate, cannot always be conveyed in English by a word-for-word translation. For example, a literal word-for-word translation of the Greek in Matthew 1:18 would be something like this: “Of the but Jesus Christ the birth thus was. Being betrothed the mother of him, Mary, to Joseph, before or to come together them she was found in belly having from Spirit Holy.”

Even the KJV, which many believe to be a very literal translation, renders this verse: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.”

This comparison makes the KJV look like a paraphrase next to a strictly literal translation! To some degree, every Bible translator is forced to move words around in a sentence to convey with meaning the thought of the verse. There is no such thing as a truly literal translation of the Bible, for there is not an equivalent language that perfectly conveys the meaning of the biblical text. Is it really possible to have a highly accurate and highly readable English Bible? We certainly hope so! It is so important that God’s Word is living in our hearts, ringing in our ears, and burning in our souls. Transferring God’s revelation from Hebrew and Greek into English is an art, not merely a linguistic science. Thus, we need all the accurate translations we can find. If a verse or passage in one translation seems confusing, it is good to do a side-by-side comparison with another version.

It is difficult to say which translation is the “best.” “Best” is often in the eyes of the reader and is determined by how important differing factors are to different people. However, the “best” translation, in my thinking, is the one that makes the Word of God clear and accurate, no matter how many words it takes to express it.

That’s the aim of The Passion Translation: to bring God’s eternal truth into a highly readable heart-level expression that causes truth and love to jump out of the text and lodge inside our hearts. A desire to remain accurate to the text and a desire to communicate God’s heart of passion for his people are the two driving forces behind TPT. So for those new to Bible reading, we hope TPT will excite and illuminate. For scholars and Bible students, we hope TPT will bring the joys of new discoveries from the text and prompt deeper consideration of what God has spoken to his people. We all have so much more to learn and discover about God in his holy Word!

You will notice at times we’ve italicized certain words or phrases. These portions are not in the original Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic manuscripts but are implied from the context. We’ve made these implications explicit for the sake of narrative clarity and to better convey the meaning of God’s Word. This is a common practice by mainstream translations.

We’ve also chosen to translate certain names in their original Hebrew or Greek forms to better convey their cultural meaning and significance. For instance, some translations of the Bible have substituted James for Jacob and Jude for Judah. Both Greek and Aramaic manuscripts leave these Hebrew names in their original forms. Therefore, this translation uses those cultural names.

The purpose of The Passion Translation is to reintroduce the passion and fire of the Bible to the English reader. It doesn’t merely convey the literal meaning of words. It expresses God’s passion for people and his world by translating the original, life-changing message of God’s Word for modern readers.

We pray this version of God’s Word will kindle in you a burning desire to know the heart of God, while impacting the church for years to come.

Please visit ThePassionTranslation.com for more information.

Brian Simmons and the translation team

PROVERBS

(return to table of contents)

Introduction • One • Two • Three • Four • Five • Six • Seven • Eight • Nine • Ten • Eleven • Twelve • Thirteen • Fourteen • Fifteen • Sixteen • Seventeen • Eighteen • Nineteen • Twenty • Twenty-One • Twenty-Two • Twenty-Three • Twenty-Four • Twenty-Five • Twenty-Six • Twenty-Seven • Twenty-Eight • Twenty-Nine • Thirty • Thirty-One

PROVERBS

Introduction

AT A GLANCE

Author: Mostly Solomon, king of Israel, but other contributors too

Audience: Originally Israel, but these words of wisdom are for everyone—they are written to you

Date: Preexile (chs. 10–29) and Postexile (chs. 1–9; 30–31), the tenth to fifth centuries BC

Type of Literature: Poetry and wisdom literature

Major Themes: The fear of the Lord; God’s transcendence and immanence; godly wisdom and human foolishness; the righteous and wicked wealth and poverty; men and women; husbands and wives; Jesus and wisdom

Outline:

Collection I: Introduction to Wisdom — 1:1–9:18

Collection II: Sayings of Solomon, Part 1 — 10:1–22:16

Collection III: Sayings of the Wise — 22:17–24:22

Collection IV: More Sayings of the Wise — 24:23–34

Collection V: Sayings of Solomon, Part 2 — 25:1–29:27

Collection VI: Sayings of Agur and Lemuel — 30:1–31:31

ABOUT PROVERBS

The Bible is a book of poetry, not simply starched, stiff doctrines devoid of passion. The Bible, including Proverbs, is full of poetic beauty and subtle nuances ripe with meaning. The ancient wisdom of God fills its pages!

Proverbs is a book of wisdom from above tucked inside metaphors, symbols, and poetic imagery. God could properly be described as the divine poet and master artisan who crafted the cosmos to portray his glory and has given us his written Word to reveal his wisdom. Inspired from eternity, the sixty-six books of our Bible convey the full counsel and wisdom of God. Do you need wisdom? God has a verse for that!

Five books of divine poetry show us the reality of knowing God through experience, not just through history or doctrines. Job points us to the end of our self-life to discover the greatest revelation of the Lord, which is his tender love and wisdom. Psalms reveals the new life we enter into with God, expressed through praise and prayer. Next is Proverbs, where we enroll in the divine seminary of wisdom and revelation to learn the ways of God. Ecclesiastes teaches us to set our hearts not on the things of this life but on those values that endure eternally. And finally, in Song of Songs, the sweetest lyrics ever composed lead us into divine romance where we are immersed in Jesus’ love for his bride.

The nature of Hebrew poetry is quite different from that of English poetry. There is a pleasure found in Hebrew poetry that transcends rhyme and meter. The Hebrew verses come in a poetic package, a form of meaning that imparts an understanding that is deeper than mere logic. True revelation unfolds an encounter—an experience of knowing God as he is revealed through the mysterious vocabulary of riddle, proverb, and parable.

For example, the Hebrew word for “proverb,” mashal, has two meanings. The first is “parable, byword, metaphor, a pithy saying that expresses wisdom.” But the second meaning is overlooked by many. The homonym mashal can also mean “to rule, to take dominion” or “to reign with power.”

What you have before you now is a dynamic translation of the ancient book of Proverbs. These powerful words will bring you revelation from the throne room—the wisdom you need to guide your steps and direct your life. What you learn from these verses will change your life and launch you into your destiny.

PURPOSE

Within this divinely anointed compilation of proverbs there is a deep well of wisdom to reign in our lives and to succeed in our destiny. The wisdom that God has designed for us to receive will cause us to excel—to rise up as rulers-to-be on earth for his glory. The kingdom of God is brought into the earth as we implement the godly wisdom of Proverbs.

Although the book of Proverbs can be interpreted in its most literal and practical sense, the wisdom contained herein is not unlocked by a casual surface reading. The Spirit of revelation has breathed upon every verse to embed a deeper meaning of practical insight to guide our steps into the lives God meant for us to live.

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

You’re about to read the greatest book of wisdom ever written, mostly penned by the wisest man to ever live. God gave Solomon this wisdom to pass along to us, God’s servants, who continue the ministry of Jesus, the embodiment of wisdom, until he returns in full glory. While Solomon penned most of these words of wisdom, it is believed others had a hand too, including advisers to King Hezekiah and the unknown men Agur and Lemuel—which could be pseudonyms for Solomon. Regardless, the one who edited the final version of Proverbs brought together the wisest teachings from the wisest person to ever live to write a book containing some of the deepest revelation in the Bible. When Solomon pens a proverb, there is more than meets the eye!

To whom are these proverbs written? This compilation of wisdom’s words is written to you! Throughout the book we find words like “Listen, my sons. Listen, my daughters.” The book of Proverbs is written to us as sons and daughters of the living God. The teaching we receive is not from a distant god who tells us we’d better live right or else. These are personal words of love and tenderness from our wise Father, the Father of eternity, who speaks right into our hearts with healing, radiant words. Receive deeply the words of the kind Father of heaven as though he were speaking directly to you.

MAJOR THEMES

The wisdom found in Proverbs is about the art of successful living. The appeal of these insights is that they touch on universal problems and issues that affect human behavior in us all. Several major themes are present in these godly sayings of God’s servant Solomon:

Lady Wisdom, Revelation-Knowledge, Living-Understanding. Throughout Proverbs wisdom is personified with the metaphor of Lady Wisdom, who dispenses revelation-knowledge and living-understanding. Lady Wisdom is a figure of speech for God, whose divine wisdom invites us to receive the best way to live, the excellent and noble way of life. Wisdom is personified as a guide (6:22), a beloved sister or bride (7:4), and a hostess who generously invites people to “come and dine at my table and drink of my wine” (9:1–6). In Proverbs, wisdom is inseparable from knowledge and understanding, which is not received independent of God’s revelation. We are invited to “come to the one who has living-understanding” (9:10) in order to receive what Lady Wisdom has to offer. God promises that revelation-knowledge will flow to the one who hungers for the gift of understanding (14:6).

The Fear of the Lord. From the beginning, in 1:7, Proverbs makes it clear that we “gain the essence of wisdom” and “cross the threshold of true knowledge” only when we fear the Lord—or, as The Passion Translation reads, we live “in obedient devotion to God.” Living in a way that our entire being worships and adores God is a constant theme throughout Proverbs.

God’s Transcendence and Immanence. Proverbs teaches that God is both the author of (transcendent) and actor within (immanent) our human story. First, God is above and outside the world: as Creator “he broke open the hidden fountains of the deep, bringing secret springs to the surface” (3:20); “God sees everything you do and his eyes are wide open as he observes every single habit you have” (5:21); he is sovereign and steers “a king’s heart for his purposes” as easily as he directs “the course of a stream” (21:1).

Second, God is a part of and involved with the world: “The rich and the poor have one thing in common: the Lord God created each one” (22:2); “the Lord champions the widow’s cause” (15:25); he “will rise to plead [the poor’s] case” (22:23).

Proverbs teaches that God is all-powerful and transcendent while also taking part in our human story as our defender and protector.

Wise and Fool, Righteous and Wicked. Solomon believed there are basically two kinds of people in the world: the wise righteous and the wicked fools. The wise person possesses God’s revelation-knowledge and living-understanding. Therefore, he is prudent, shrewd, insightful, and does what is right because he is righteous, a God-lover. This lover of God is just, peaceful, upright, blameless, good, trustworthy, and kind.

The wicked fool is different. He is greedy, violent, deceitful, cruel, and he speaks perversely. It’s no wonder “the Lord detests the lifestyle of the wicked” (15:9)! As a foolish person, he is described as being gullible, an idiot, self-sufficient, a mocker, lazy, senseless, and one who rejects revelation-knowledge and living-understanding.

Many of Solomon’s wise sayings relate to these two kinds of people, teaching us how to avoid being a wicked fool and instead live as God intends us to live, as his wise, righteous lovers.

Wealth and Poverty. As with many of Solomon’s wise sayings, we cannot take one thought on wealth and poverty and apply it to every situation. Instead, Solomon teaches us seven major things about having wealth and being poor, and how wisdom and foolishness affect them both: the righteous are blessed with wealth by God himself; foolishness leads to poverty; fools who have wealth will soon lose it; poverty results from injustice and oppression; the wealthy are called to be generous with their wealth; gaining wisdom is far better than gaining wealth; and the value of wealth is limited.

Jesus and the Church. As with the rest of the Old Testament, we are called to read Proverbs in light of Jesus and his ministry. Throughout the gospels Jesus associates himself with wisdom. For instance, in Matt. 11:18–19 Jesus claims his actions represent Lady Wisdom herself. Where he is identified with Lady Wisdom in the New Testament, it is a powerful way of saying that Jesus is the full, entire embodiment of wisdom. In many ways Col. 1:15–17 mirrors Prov. 8. Likewise, the preface to John’s Gospel resonates with this same chapter when Jesus is associated with the Word, another personification of wisdom.

Jesus stands at the center of Scripture; he can be found throughout Scripture, not just in the New Testament. So as you read these important words of wisdom, consider how they point to the One who perfectly embodied and is our Wisdom.

PROVERBS

Wisdom from Above

The Prologue

1Here are kingdom revelations, words to live by,

and words of wisdom given to empower you to reign in life,a

written as proverbs by Israel’s King Solomon,b David’s son.

2Within these sayings will be found the revelation of wisdomc

and the impartation of spiritual understanding.

Use them as keys to unlock the treasures of true knowledge.

3Those who cling to these words will receive discipline

to demonstrate wisdomd in every relationship

and to choose what is right and just and fair.

4These proverbs will give you great skill

to teach the immature and make them wise,

to give youth the understanding of their design and destiny.

5For the wise, these proverbs will make you even wiser,

and for those with discernment,

you will be able to acquire brilliant strategies for leadership.

6These kingdom revelations will break open your understanding

to unveil the deeper meaning of parables,

poetic riddles, and epigrams,

and to unravel the words and enigmas of the wise.

7We cross the threshold of true knowledge

when we live in obedient devotion to God.e

Stubborn know-it-allsf will never stop to do this,

for they scorn true wisdom and knowledge.

The Wisdom of a Father

8Pay close attention, my child, to your father’s wise words

and never forget your mother’s instructions.g

9For their insight will bring you success,

adorning you with grace-filled thoughts

and giving you reins to guide your decisions.h

10When peer pressure compels you to go with the crowd

and sinners invite you to join in,

you must simply say, “No!”

11When the gang says—

“We’re going to steal and kill and get away with it.

12We’ll take down the rich and rob them.

We’ll swallow them up alive

and take what we want from whomever we want.

13Then we’ll take their treasures and fill our homes with loot.

14So come on and join us.

Take your chance with us.

We’ll divide up all we get;

we’ll each end up with big bags of cash!”—

15