Discretion will watch over you, and understanding will guard you,
Parallel translations
- WEB Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,
- KJV Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
- NKJV Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you,
- NASB Discretion will watch over you, Understanding will guard you,
- NLT Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe.
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
Discretion and understanding will watch over and protect you. It matters because internalized wisdom becomes a guard against evil.
Overview
Once wisdom dwells within (v. 10), it functions as a protective guardian. Discretion keeps watch, steering the wise away from danger. This protective power of indwelling wisdom prepares for the deliverance described in the following verses.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Prov 4:6Do not forsake wisdom, and she will preserve you; love her, and she will guard you.
- Eph 5:15Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,
- Ps 25:21May integrity and uprightness preserve me, because I wait for You.
- Eccl 10:10If the axe is dull and the blade unsharpened, more strength must be exerted, but skill produces success.
- Ps 119:9–11How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to Your word.
- Eccl 9:15–18Now a poor wise man was found in the city, and he saved the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered that poor man.
- Prov 6:22–24When you walk, they will guide you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 2:11 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.