Ill-gotten treasures profit nothing, but righteousness brings deliverance from death.
Parallel translations
- WEB Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivers from death.
- KJV Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.
- NKJV Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, But righteousness delivers from death.
- NASB Ill-gotten gains do not benefit, But righteousness rescues from death.
- NLT Tainted wealth has no lasting value, but right living can save your life.
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
Ill-gotten treasures profit nothing, but righteousness delivers from death. Wickedly gained wealth cannot save, while righteousness does.
Overview
Wealth obtained through wickedness offers no lasting benefit, for it cannot rescue from death or judgment. Righteousness, by contrast, has saving power that earthly riches lack. This anticipates the gospel truth that no amount of wealth can redeem the soul; only the righteousness God provides delivers from death (Psalm 49:7-8; Romans 5:18-19).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Prov 11:4Riches are worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness brings deliverance from death.
- Prov 12:28There is life in the path of righteousness, but another path leads to death.
- Ps 49:6–10They trust in their wealth and boast in their great riches.
- Prov 21:6Making a fortune by a lying tongue is a vanishing mist, a deadly pursuit.
- Zeph 1:18Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the Day of the LORD’s wrath. The whole earth will be consumed by the fire of His jealousy.” For indeed, He will make a sudden end of all who dwell on the earth.
- Ezek 7:19They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs with wealth, for it became the stumbling block that brought their iniquity.
- Rom 5:21so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
- Dan 4:27Therefore, may my advice be pleasing to you, O king. Break away from your sins by doing what is right, and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed. Perhaps there will be an extension of your prosperity.”
- Isa 10:2–3to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, to make widows their prey and orphans their plunder.
- Luke 16:22–23One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried.
- Phil 3:9and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.
- Rom 2:5But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
- Luke 12:15–21And He said to them, “Watch out! Guard yourselves against every form of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
- Jas 5:1–3Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you.
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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 10:2 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
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