Proverbs 30:10–14, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Proverbs 30:10–14
Humility, teachability, pride, and reputation — Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee,…
contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.”
Why this sits here
Proverbs 30:10–14 continues “A prayer for truth and sufficient provision” by carrying “Humility, teachability, pride, and reputation — Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee,…” within the same sustained discourse, admonition, numbered form, or poem.
What helps us understand it
How this passage works
Proverbs 30:10–14Proverbs 30:10–14 is the reviewed unit “Humility, teachability, pride, and reputation — Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee,….” Its parallel lines, repeated address, comparison, or local cluster controls how each verse contributes without borrowing a neighboring unit's subject.
The unit opens “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty” and closes “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives,….”
Later material that clarifies it
Proverbs 30:15–17Proverbs 30:15–17 develops by example this unit's “Humility, teachability, pride, and reputation — Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee,…” by carrying “Insatiable desires counted.”
This unit ends “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as…,” and the following unit opens “The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things….”
Place in the book
Proverbs as a wholeProverbs 30:10–14 belongs to “Words of Agur and numbered observations.” Agur confesses human limits, prays for truthful sufficiency, condemns arrogant appetite, and studies creatures, social inversions, and escalating conflict through compact numerical sayings. This unit contributes humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care through its own received wording and form.
The received sequence places Proverbs 30:10–14 inside Proverbs 30:1–30:33; this unit opens “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty” and closes “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives,….” The unit's reviewed main point is: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.”
Proverbs 30:10–14 opens with “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty” and closes with “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives,….” Those endpoints show the unit's movement from opening claim to reviewed close.
How the passage moves
Development (30:10–14): adjacent lines test humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
Why this reading fits
Exact verse-level work
Every line in Proverbs 30:10–14 retains its own Verse Lens role and does not borrow a neighboring verse's claim.
Proverbial proportion
The unit's instruction and observations concern humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care; they describe moral direction without explaining every exceptional outcome.
A needed correction
Reading Proverbs 30:10–14 as edited wisdom rather than a detached formula rules out these uses:
The saying does not justify humiliation, low self-worth, social erasure, or demanding submission from someone with less power.
The saying does not authorize vigilantism, collective blame, discriminatory policing, cruelty, or a claim that one modern institution always speaks for God.
The saying does not command unconditional obedience to abuse, erase adult agency, idealize one household form, or give relatives ownership over another person.
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 30:10–14.
What remains true
Teachability and truthful self-knowledge are safer than status-protection, self-exaltation, or contempt for correction. Wisdom requires honest judgment and active regard for people who can be exploited, ignored, or misrepresented. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
How this should shape us
How does the application follow proportionately?
Invite specific feedback, test your assumptions, share credit, and repair the effects of pride rather than performing modesty. Use verifiable evidence, fair procedure, proportionate response, and meaningful access for the person with less power. Practice mutual listening, clear expectations, dependable care, and boundaries that protect every member's dignity and safety. In 30:10–14, let the concrete wording “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse…” keep that response tied to the people, action, comparison, or consequence actually named.
Teach it back
Explain Proverbs 30:10–14 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.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Exact verse-level work
Every line in Proverbs 30:10–14 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 “Words of Agur and numbered observations”: Agur confesses human limits, prays for truthful sufficiency, condemns arrogant appetite, and studies creatures, social inversions, and escalating conflict through compact numerical sayings.
Proverbial proportion
The unit's instruction and observations concern humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care; they describe moral direction without explaining every exceptional outcome.
What the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
Edited wisdom and social setting
This unit belongs to words of agur and numbered observations. 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? probableEarlier 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, Agur confesses human limits, prays for truthful sufficiency, condemns arrogant appetite, and studies creatures, social inversions, and escalating conflict through compact numerical sayings. This local unit is read through that movement before broader canonical comparison.
How certain? probableWhere careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful readers disagree?
Best judgment: The unit's speaker, literary form, imagery, or arrangement carries named uncertainty. The judgment follows the received sequence without inventing a biography or forcing every image into one allegory.
How certain? probableTheology 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: Teachability and truthful self-knowledge are safer than status-protection, self-exaltation, or contempt for correction. Wisdom requires honest judgment and active regard for people who can be exploited, ignored, or misrepresented. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
Within Words of Agur and numbered observations, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.”
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
The saying does not justify humiliation, low self-worth, social erasure, or demanding submission from someone with less power.
A compact saying is easy to detach and universalize.
Within words of agur and numbered observations, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.” 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.
Teachability and truthful self-knowledge are safer than status-protection, self-exaltation, or contempt for correction. Wisdom requires honest judgment and active regard for people who can be exploited, ignored, or misrepresented. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. 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: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.”
The saying does not authorize vigilantism, collective blame, discriminatory policing, cruelty, or a claim that one modern institution always speaks for God.
An ancient authority, household, wealth, gender, or consequence image can be imported into modern power without following the interpretation chain.
Within words of agur and numbered observations, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.” 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.
Teachability and truthful self-knowledge are safer than status-protection, self-exaltation, or contempt for correction. Wisdom requires honest judgment and active regard for people who can be exploited, ignored, or misrepresented. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. 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: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.”
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 words of agur and numbered observations, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.” 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.
Teachability and truthful self-knowledge are safer than status-protection, self-exaltation, or contempt for correction. Wisdom requires honest judgment and active regard for people who can be exploited, ignored, or misrepresented. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. 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: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.”
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 30:10–14.
An ancient authority, household, wealth, gender, or consequence image can be imported into modern power without following the interpretation chain.
Within words of agur and numbered observations, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.” 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.
Teachability and truthful self-knowledge are safer than status-protection, self-exaltation, or contempt for correction. Wisdom requires honest judgment and active regard for people who can be exploited, ignored, or misrepresented. Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. 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: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty”; by 30:14, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off…”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care within “Words of Agur and numbered observations.”
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 30:10–14, 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 30:10-30:14
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1178-1181, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 30:10–14
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 30:10–14 and the Words of Agur and numbered observations outline
Supports: One historical-social account of poverty, wealth, interest, oppression, labor, and differing evaluations within the collection.
Wittenberg, ‘Situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth,’ Scriptura 21, pp. 1-23, especially the sayings and redactional comparison relevant to Proverbs 30:10–14
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 30:10–14, 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 30:10-30:14
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. 1178-1181, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 30:10–14
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 30:10–14 and the Words of Agur and numbered observations outline
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access journal article
The situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth in the Book of Proverbs
G. H. Wittenberg
Scriptura 21, 1987; open archive 2020
Supports: One historical-social account of poverty, wealth, interest, oppression, labor, and differing evaluations within the collection.
Exact location: Wittenberg, ‘Situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth,’ Scriptura 21, pp. 1-23, especially the sayings and redactional comparison relevant to Proverbs 30:10–14
Open source ↗