Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Proverbs 17:13 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 13. 13Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house”.
Paying evil for good camps evil in the house; strife starts like water you cannot take back
This verse is one part of that explanation in Proverbs 17:13–16. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- Proverbs 17:13–16
Read Proverbs 17:13 with 17:13–16. Read alone, “Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house”; by 17:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?”. Together the unit concentrates on family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, violence, predation, conflict, and protection, reverent accountability before the LORD within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Why This Verse Appears Here
Proverbs 17:13–16 forms a reviewed local cluster inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Its lines concentrate on family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, violence, predation, conflict, and protection, reverent accountability before the LORD, while each sentence proverb retains its own force and the neighboring database unit does not supply its meaning. Within that relationship, this verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house”.
What Remains True
Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. In Proverbs 17:13, that bounded truth is expressed through “Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his…,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- When harm is returned for generosity, stop enabling the pattern, document what occurred, protect those at risk, and seek a fair response without retaliatory cruelty.
Continue in Context
Read the complete section for the connected explanation and how it should shape life. This verse is a doorway into that passage, not a saying that stands alone.
Read Proverbs 17:13–16 — Evil returned for good, escalating strife, and distorted judgmentSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
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 17:13–16, 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 17:13-17:16
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. 1129-1132, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 17:13–16
Open source ↗