Read the passage and its setting
Proverbs 3:21–26, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Proverbs 3:21–26
Keep sound wisdom and walk securely
The Main Point
opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.”
What Is Happening Here?
Proverbs 3:21–26 opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion” and closes with “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.” Those endpoints show the unit's movement from opening claim to reviewed close.
Context That Shapes This Passage
How does this passage relate?
Proverbs 3:21–26In “Keep sound wisdom and walk securely,” the complete unit develops this passage-specific claim: opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.”
Why this relationship fits: The reviewed reasoning path begins, “Opening (3:21): the unit opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”.” and concludes, “Close (3:26): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”, creating the next supported pause.”
How does this passage relate?
Proverbs 3:21–26Proverbs 3:21–26 is the reviewed unit “Keep sound wisdom and walk securely.” Its parallel lines, repeated address, comparison, or local cluster controls how each verse contributes without borrowing a neighboring unit's subject.
Why this relationship fits: The unit opens “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion” and closes “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.”
What earlier material does it rely on?
Proverbs 3:13–20Proverbs 3:21–26 continues the earlier movement “Wisdom is better than treasure and rooted in creation” by carrying “Keep sound wisdom and walk securely.”
Why this relationship fits: The earlier unit ends “By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew,” and this unit opens “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion.”
What following material clarifies it?
Proverbs 3:27–35Proverbs 3:27–35 contrasts with this unit's “Keep sound wisdom and walk securely” by carrying “Timely neighbor-love and refusal of violent envy.”
Why this relationship fits: This unit ends “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken,” and the following unit opens “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of….”
Where does this sit in the whole book?
Proverbs as a wholeProverbs 3:21–26 belongs to “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.” The prologue teaches readers how to read the sayings: wisdom begins in reverent accountability, must be sought and practiced, and is dramatized as a life-giving woman whose public invitation competes with violent, deceptive, and deadly paths. This unit contributes life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception through its own received wording and form.
Why this relationship fits: The received sequence places Proverbs 3:21–26 inside Proverbs 1:1–9:18; this unit opens “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion” and closes “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.” The unit's reviewed main point is: opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.”
Follow the Wisdom Collection
See why this section appears here and how the author's wisdom movement leads to its meaning.
Why Is This Passage Here?
Proverbs 3:21–26 continues “Wisdom is better than treasure and rooted in creation” by carrying “Keep sound wisdom and walk securely” within the same sustained discourse, admonition, numbered form, or poem.
Follow the Saying or Discourse
Opening (3:21): the unit opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”.
Development (3:21–26): adjacent lines test life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
Close (3:26): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”, creating the next supported pause.
Why This Interpretation Fits
Exact verse-level work
Every line in Proverbs 3:21–26 retains its own Verse Lens role and does not borrow a neighboring verse's claim.
Collection context
The superscription and placement identify this unit inside “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly”: The prologue teaches readers how to read the sayings: wisdom begins in reverent accountability, must be sought and practiced, and is dramatized as a life-giving woman whose public invitation competes with violent, deceptive, and deadly paths.
Proverbial proportion
The unit's instruction and observations concern life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception; they describe moral direction without explaining every exceptional outcome.
Understand the Meaning and Its Boundaries
Clarify the words that matter and keep the conclusion no broader than the passage allows.
What the Passage Is Not Saying
Reading Proverbs 3:21–26 as edited wisdom rather than a detached formula rules out these uses:
The saying does not threaten vulnerable people, blame a person's death or illness on folly, romanticize self-harm, or promise that wisdom prevents every tragedy.
The saying does not command unconditional obedience to abuse, erase adult agency, idealize one household form, or give relatives ownership over another person.
The saying does not make a proverb a universal guarantee, label people permanently, reward contempt, or replace careful attention to exceptional cases.
The unit does not turn a normal wisdom pattern into a universal promise, a complete causal explanation of suffering, or a mandate broader than Proverbs 3:21–26.
Context check: Within purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of wisdom and folly, opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
What Remains True Today
Proverbs traces the cumulative direction of choices toward life-giving order or destructive consequence without claiming to explain every death or survival. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
Respond and Remember
Let the meaning shape life carefully, then practice explaining the section in context.
How This Should Shape Us
Why these applications follow
Proverbs 3:21–26 applies life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception through the people, action, comparison, and consequence named in its complete movement.
Within purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of wisdom and folly, opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Proverbs traces the cumulative direction of choices toward life-giving order or destructive consequence without claiming to explain every death or survival. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
How does the application follow proportionately?
Choose the option that protects life, reduces foreseeable harm, preserves access to help, and keeps long-term consequences visible. Practice mutual listening, clear expectations, dependable care, and boundaries that protect every member's dignity and safety. For a difficult choice, seek correction, compare the likely effects of competing paths, and choose the option that protects truth, justice, and teachability. In 3:21–26, let the concrete wording “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep…” keep that response tied to the people, action, comparison, or consequence actually named.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 3:21–26 in your own words. Identify its form and collection, trace one line from role through contextual meaning and enduring truth to application, name one uncertainty, and reject one misuse explicitly.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Go Deeper
The main explanation above stands on its own. Open these optional sections for fuller language, history, disagreements, and source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Exact verse-level work
Every line in Proverbs 3:21–26 retains its own Verse Lens role and does not borrow a neighboring verse's claim.
Collection context
The superscription and placement identify this unit inside “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly”: The prologue teaches readers how to read the sayings: wisdom begins in reverent accountability, must be sought and practiced, and is dramatized as a life-giving woman whose public invitation competes with violent, deceptive, and deadly paths.
Proverbial proportion
The unit's instruction and observations concern life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception; they describe moral direction without explaining every exceptional outcome.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
No individual Hebrew or KJV expression in Proverbs 3:21–26 needs a separate lexical card beyond the complete saying or discourse explanation.
What the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
Edited wisdom and social setting
This unit belongs to purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of wisdom and folly. Aitken's printed pages 405-422 and the book-specific sources identify family, community, agricultural, commercial, scribal, court, and royal settings as relevant possibilities without proving one setting for every saying.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
No older-English term in this unit requires a separate reader note after reading the complete KJV line in context.
Earlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Israelite wisdom setting
The unit's first horizon is Israel's wisdom collection under fear of the LORD. Torah-shaped justice, creation, household teaching, royal responsibility, and community life may inform the language, but no cross-reference overrides this unit's own parallelism and collection role.
How certain? probableHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Responsible canonical location
Within the received book, The prologue teaches readers how to read the sayings: wisdom begins in reverent accountability, must be sought and practiced, and is dramatized as a life-giving woman whose public invitation competes with violent, deceptive, and deadly paths. This local unit is read through that movement before broader canonical comparison.
How certain? probableTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
No reviewed textual variant changes Proverbs 3:21–26's central wisdom movement; the exact Hebrew and NET notes were still checked against the pinned KJV.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
No major competing interpretation changes Proverbs 3:21–26's central wisdom movement; pattern, exception, and collection limits still remain visible.
Theology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
The unit places practical wisdom under a moral order answerable to the LORD: Proverbs traces the cumulative direction of choices toward life-giving order or destructive consequence without claiming to explain every death or survival. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
Within Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly, opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.”
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
The saying does not threaten vulnerable people, blame a person's death or illness on folly, romanticize self-harm, or promise that wisdom prevents every tragedy.
A compact saying is easy to detach and universalize.
Within purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of wisdom and folly, opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Proverbs traces the cumulative direction of choices toward life-giving order or destructive consequence without claiming to explain every death or survival. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
The context-supported contribution remains: opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.”
The saying does not command unconditional obedience to abuse, erase adult agency, idealize one household form, or give relatives ownership over another person.
An ancient authority, household, wealth, gender, or consequence image can be imported into modern power without following the interpretation chain.
Within purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of wisdom and folly, opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Proverbs traces the cumulative direction of choices toward life-giving order or destructive consequence without claiming to explain every death or survival. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
The context-supported contribution remains: opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.”
The saying does not make a proverb a universal guarantee, label people permanently, reward contempt, or replace careful attention to exceptional cases.
An ancient authority, household, wealth, gender, or consequence image can be imported into modern power without following the interpretation chain.
Within purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of wisdom and folly, opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Proverbs traces the cumulative direction of choices toward life-giving order or destructive consequence without claiming to explain every death or survival. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
The context-supported contribution remains: opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.”
The unit does not turn a normal wisdom pattern into a universal promise, a complete causal explanation of suffering, or a mandate broader than Proverbs 3:21–26.
An ancient authority, household, wealth, gender, or consequence image can be imported into modern power without following the interpretation chain.
Within purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of wisdom and folly, opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Proverbs traces the cumulative direction of choices toward life-giving order or destructive consequence without claiming to explain every death or survival. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
The context-supported contribution remains: opens with “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes” and develops the line through “keep sound wisdom and discretion”; by 3:26, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken”. Together the unit concentrates on life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly.”
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Proverbs 3:21–26, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 3:21-3:26
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1084-1088, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 3:21–26
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 3:21–26 and the Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly outline
Supports: One tested account of urban imagery and continuity across the book without inferring one composition setting.
Dell, ‘Wisdom and Folly in the city,’ SJT 69.4 (2016), pp. 389-401, sections on maxims, social indicators, Proverbs 1-9, and conclusion relevant to Proverbs 3:21–26
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
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 3:21–26, 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 3:21-3:26
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. 1084-1088, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 3:21–26
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Proverbs
K. T. Aitken
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Exact location: Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 3:21–26 and the Purpose, parental discourses, and the rival invitations of Wisdom and Folly outline
Open source ↗peer reviewed journal article
Wisdom and Folly in the city: exploring urban contexts in the book of Proverbs
Katharine J. Dell
Scottish Journal of Theology 69.4, 2016
Supports: One tested account of urban imagery and continuity across the book without inferring one composition setting.
Exact location: Dell, ‘Wisdom and Folly in the city,’ SJT 69.4 (2016), pp. 389-401, sections on maxims, social indicators, Proverbs 1-9, and conclusion relevant to Proverbs 3:21–26
Open source ↗