If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:
Parallel translations
- WEB If they say, “Come with us. Let’s lay in wait for blood. Let’s lurk secretly for the innocent without cause.
- BSB If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause,
- NKJV If they say, “Come with us, Let us lie in wait to shed blood; Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;
- NASB If they say, “Come with us, Let’s lie in wait for blood, Let’s ambush the innocent without cause;
- NLT They may say, “Come and join us. Let’s hide and kill someone! Just for fun, let’s ambush the innocent!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The enticers invite the youth to ambush and harm the innocent. It matters because it exposes how sin disguises violence as exciting fellowship.
Overview
Here the seducers' words are quoted, beginning their appeal to join a violent gang lying in wait for innocent victims. Sin is portrayed as predatory and cruel, attacking those 'without cause.' Scripture unmasks such bloodshed as the opposite of God's justice and care for the innocent.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Prov 1:18And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.
- Jer 5:26For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
- Prov 12:6The words of the wicked are to lie in wait for blood: but the mouth of the upright shall deliver them.
- Jer 18:18–20Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.
- Acts 25:3And desired favour against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him.
- Ps 64:5–6They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?
- Ps 56:6They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.
- Prov 30:14There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
- Ps 10:8–10He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.
- Matt 26:3–4Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas,
- Ps 35:7For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
- Prov 1:16For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
- John 15:25But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
- Acts 23:15Now therefore ye with the council signify to the chief captain that he bring him down unto you to morrow, as though ye would enquire something more perfectly concerning him: and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him.
- Mic 7:2The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
- Jer 11:19But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.
- Ps 17:12Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 1:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.