As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.
Parallel translations
- WEB Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout, is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.
- BSB Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.
- NKJV As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, So is a lovely woman who lacks discretion.
- NASB As a ring of gold in a pig’s snout So is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.
- NLT A beautiful woman who lacks discretion is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout.
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
Beauty without discretion is like a gold ring in a pig's snout. Outward attractiveness is wasted and incongruous when it lacks good sense.
Overview
With a memorable, almost comic image, the proverb teaches that physical beauty divorced from discernment is misplaced and worthless. It warns against prizing appearance over character. The lesson echoes Scripture's consistent call to value the inner adornment of a wise and godly heart above outward show.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- 1 Pet 3:3–4Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
- Prov 31:30Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
- Nah 3:4–6Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.
- 2 Pet 2:22But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
- Prov 9:13A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.
- Prov 7:10And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart.
- Gen 24:47And I asked her, and said, Whose daughter art thou? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bare unto him: and I put the earring upon her face, and the bracelets upon her hands.
- Ezek 16:15–22But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 11:22 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.