Verse Lens · Context pointer
Proverbs 4:16 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 16. 16For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
This verse uses two-part parallelism to place “For they sleep not, except they have done mischief” beside “and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to...”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 4:10–19
Read Proverbs 4:16 inside Proverbs 4:10–19: it uses two-part parallelism to place “For they sleep not, except they have done mischief” beside “and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to...”. The unit then locates that line within life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, violence, predation, conflict, and protection, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care rather than treating it as a free-standing formula.
Why It Needs Context
This verse uses two-part parallelism to place “For they sleep not, except they have done mischief” beside “and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to...”. Its force depends on the complete instruction, list, comparison, or cluster in Proverbs 4:10–19; the isolated line is connective rather than a complete teaching claim.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Proverbs 4:10–19 — Choose the bright path over the violent pathSources used for this context pointer
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 4:10–19, 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 4:10-4:19
Open source ↗