Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them.
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it.
- KJV Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
- BSB Do not withhold good from the deserving when it is within your power to act.
- NKJV Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in the power of your hand to do so.
- NASB ¶Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in your power to do it.
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 withhold good from those to whom it is owed when you have power to give it. Wisdom acts justly and generously toward neighbors.
Overview
Turning from inner security to social duty, the father commands active justice and generosity: do not deny what is rightly owed, whether wages, kindness, or aid, when you can supply it. Wisdom is not merely private but expresses itself in love of neighbor. This anticipates the law of love fulfilled in Christ and urged on his people (Gal 6:10; Jas 2:15-16).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Gal 6:10So then, as we have opportunity, let’s do what is good toward all men, and especially toward those who are of the household of the faith.
- Jas 2:15–16And if a brother or sister is naked and in lack of daily food,
- Rom 13:7Therefore give everyone what you owe: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if customs, then customs; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
- Jas 5:4Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.
- Gen 31:29It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.’
- Mic 2:1Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.
- Titus 2:14who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 3:27 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.