Many men claim to be men of unfailing love, but who can find a faithful man?
Parallel translations
- KJV Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?
- BSB Many a man proclaims his loving devotion, but who can find a trustworthy man?
- NKJV Most men will proclaim each his own goodness, But who can find a faithful man?
- NASB Many a person proclaims his own loyalty, But who can find a trustworthy person?
- NLT Many will say they are loyal friends, but who can find one who is truly reliable?
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
Many boast of their loyalty, but a truly faithful person is rare. Genuine, dependable faithfulness is hard to find.
Overview
This proverb observes that many men proclaim their own steadfast love, yet asks who can find a truly faithful man, exposing the gap between claimed and proven loyalty. It humbles human pretension and highlights the rarity of real faithfulness. This longing is answered in God, who is perfectly faithful (1 Cor. 1:9), and in Christ, the faithful witness (Rev. 1:5), who alone fully embodies the loyalty we so often lack.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Ps 12:1For the Chief Musician; upon an eight-stringed lyre. A Psalm of David. Help, Yahweh; for the godly man ceases. For the faithful fail from among the children of men.
- Matt 6:2Therefore when you do merciful deeds, don’t sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from men. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.
- Luke 18:8I tell you that he will avenge them quickly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
- Luke 22:33He said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death!”
- Prov 25:14As clouds and wind without rain, so is he who boasts of gifts deceptively.
- Prov 27:2Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.
- Luke 18:11The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortionists, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
- Mic 7:2The godly man has perished out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net.
- Jer 5:1“Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its wide places, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her.
- Eccl 7:28which my soul still seeks; but I have not found. I have found one man among a thousand; but I have not found a woman among all those.
- 2 Cor 12:11I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for in nothing was I inferior to the very best apostles, though I am nothing.
- Luke 18:28Peter said, “Look, we have left everything, and followed you.”
- John 1:47Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said about him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 20:6 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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