Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Proverbs 1:19 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 19. 19So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse uses two-part parallelism to place “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain” beside “which taketh away the life of the owners thereof”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 1:8–19
Follow Proverbs 1:8–19, not verse 1:19 alone. This line uses two-part parallelism to place “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain” beside “which taketh away the life of the owners thereof”, while the complete unit distinguishes a normal moral direction from a guaranteed outcome.
Why This Verse Appears Here
This verse uses two-part parallelism to place “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain” beside “which taketh away the life of the owners thereof”. This contributes necessary evidence to “Do not join the violent ambush,” where violence, predation, conflict, and protection, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, instruction, correction, and formation are read together without erasing the sentence saying's own force.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which...”
In plain language: wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power
This verse uses two-part parallelism to place “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain” beside “which taketh away the life of the owners thereof”.
Why it matters: This wording gives the verse its distinct role inside the cluster.
How certain? strongWhat Remains True
Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. In Proverbs 1:19, that bounded truth is expressed through “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which...,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Examine how money was obtained, who bears the cost, whether basic needs are met, and how resources can serve justice and durable care. For Proverbs 1:19, preserve the sequence: verse role (uses two-part parallelism to place “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain” beside “which taketh away the life of the owners thereof”) -> contextual meaning in Proverbs 1:8–19 -> proportionate truth -> this accountable response.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Proverbs 1:8–19 — Do not join the violent ambushSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
Where care is needed
The verse belongs to a larger speech, instruction, prayer, number saying, or poem; its voice and complete literary movement control how strongly an isolated line may be stated.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Exact location: Proverbs 1:8–19, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Proverbs
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 1:8-1:19
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Proverbs with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
Exact location: NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1074-1080, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 1:8–19
Open source ↗