My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments;
Parallel translations
- WEB My son, don’t forget my teaching; but let your heart keep my commandments:
- KJV My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:
- NKJV My son, do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands;
- NASB My son, do not forget my teaching, But have your heart comply with my commandments;
- NLT My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart.
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
Do not forget your teacher's instruction but keep his commands in your heart. It matters because wisdom must be remembered and obeyed inwardly, not just heard.
Overview
Chapter 3 renews the fatherly appeal to retain and obey wisdom from the heart. True obedience flows from inward devotion, not mere external compliance. This anticipates the new covenant promise of God's law written on the heart (Jer. 31:33), fulfilled in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 19
- John 14:21–24Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.”
- Prov 4:5Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or turn from them.
- Deut 6:6–9These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts.
- Ps 119:16I will delight in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.
- Prov 1:8Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.
- Ps 119:34Give me understanding that I may obey Your law, and follow it with all my heart.
- Ps 119:93I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have revived me.
- Jer 31:33“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
- Deut 8:1You must carefully follow every commandment I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers.
- Ps 119:11I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.
- Ps 119:47–48I delight in Your commandments because I love them.
- Ps 119:153Look upon my affliction and rescue me, for I have not forgotten Your law.
- Hos 4:6My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
- Deut 4:9Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.
- Deut 30:16–20For I am commanding you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and increase, and the LORD your God may bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.
- Ps 119:176I have strayed like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I have not forgotten Your commandments.
- Deut 4:23Be careful that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God that He made with you; do not make an idol for yourselves in the form of anything He has forbidden you.
- Prov 31:5lest they drink and forget what is decreed, depriving all the oppressed of justice.
- Isa 51:17Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of His fury; you who have drained the goblet to the dregs—the cup that makes men stagger.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
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 3:1 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.