One who walks blamelessly will receive help, But one who is crooked will fall all at once.
Parallel translations
- WEB Whoever walks blamelessly is kept safe; but one with perverse ways will fall suddenly.
- KJV Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved: but he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once.
- BSB He who walks with integrity will be kept safe, but whoever is perverse in his ways will suddenly fall.
- NKJV Whoever walks blamelessly will be saved, But he who is perverse in his ways will suddenly fall.
- NLT The blameless will be rescued from harm, but the crooked will be suddenly destroyed.
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 person of blameless conduct is kept safe, but the crooked will suddenly fall. It contrasts the security of integrity with the ruin of deceit.
Overview
Walking blamelessly brings protection, while perverse and crooked ways lead to sudden collapse. The verse assures that integrity is a path of safety under God's care. Ultimate safety is found not in our own perfection but in being clothed with the righteousness of Christ, in whom we are truly kept (Jude 24).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Prov 10:9He who walks blamelessly walks surely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out.
- Prov 28:6Better is the poor who walks in his integrity, than he who is perverse in his ways, and he is rich.
- Rev 3:3Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If therefore you won’t watch, I will come as a thief, and you won’t know what hour I will come upon you.
- Prov 11:3–6The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of the treacherous shall destroy them.
- Ps 84:11For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.
- Num 22:32Yahweh’s angel said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me.
- 1 Th 5:3For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman; and they will in no way escape.
- Ps 73:18–20Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction.
- 2 Pet 2:1–3But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.
- Ps 125:5But as for those who turn aside to their crooked ways, Yahweh will lead them away with the workers of iniquity. Peace be on Israel.
- Prov 10:25When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more; but the righteous stand firm forever.
- Ps 26:11But as for me, I will walk in my integrity. Redeem me, and be merciful to me.
- Ps 25:21Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.
- Gal 2:14But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?
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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 28:18 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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