If you have been a fool by being proud or plotting evil, cover your mouth in shame.
Parallel translations
- WEB “If you have done foolishly in lifting up yourself, or if you have thought evil, put your hand over your mouth.
- KJV If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth.
- BSB If you have foolishly exalted yourself or if you have plotted evil, put your hand over your mouth.
- NKJV If you have been foolish in exalting yourself, Or if you have devised evil, put your hand on your mouth.
- NASB ¶If you have been foolish in exalting yourself, Or if you have plotted evil, put your hand on your mouth.
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
If you have acted foolishly through pride or evil scheming, stop and put your hand over your mouth.
Overview
Agur counsels immediate restraint when pride or wicked intent has led one astray, urging silence rather than self-justification. Covering the mouth is a gesture of humble self-checking before words make matters worse. This wisdom calls for swift repentance and a guarded tongue, reflecting the humility that the gospel cultivates in every believer.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Job 21:5Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
- Job 40:4“Behold, I am of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.
- Prov 26:12Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
- Mic 7:16–17The nations will see and be ashamed of all their might. They will lay their hand on their mouth. Their ears will be deaf.
- Rom 3:19Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.
- Prov 17:28Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is counted wise. When he shuts his lips, he is thought to be discerning.
- Eccl 8:3–4Don’t be hasty to go out of his presence. Don’t persist in an evil thing, for he does whatever pleases him,
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 30:32 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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