Hold on to instruction; do not let go. Guard it, for it is your life.
Parallel translations
- WEB Take firm hold of instruction. Don’t let her go. Keep her, for she is your life.
- KJV Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life.
- NKJV Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go; Keep her, for she is your life.
- NASB Take hold of instruction; do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life.
- NLT Take hold of my instructions; don’t let them go. Guard them, for they are the key to life.
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
Hold fast to instruction and guard her, for she is your life. Wisdom is to be gripped tightly because life itself depends on her.
Overview
The father urges a firm, unrelenting grasp on instruction, calling her nothing less than 'your life.' Wisdom is too precious to let slip and must be actively kept. This urgent holding fast mirrors the New Testament call to cling to the word of life and to Christ, who is our life (Col 3:4).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Heb 2:1We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
- Prov 23:23Invest in truth and never sell it—in wisdom and instruction and understanding.
- Prov 3:18She is a tree of life to those who embrace her, and those who lay hold of her are blessed.
- 1 Th 5:21but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
- Deut 32:47For they are not idle words to you, because they are your life, and by them you will live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
- Acts 11:23When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts.
- Acts 2:42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
- John 6:68Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.
- Rev 12:11They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives so as to shy away from death.
- Song 3:4I had just passed them when I found the one I love. I held him and would not let go until I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the chamber of the one who conceived me.
- Rev 2:13I know where you live, where the throne of Satan sits. Yet you have held fast to My name and have not denied your faith in Me, even in the day when My faithful witness Antipas was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
- Eccl 7:12For wisdom, like money, is a shelter, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of its owner.
- Luke 24:27–29And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself.
- Prov 3:22They will be life to your soul and adornment to your neck.
- Gen 32:26Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
- John 4:39–42Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 4:13 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.