for I am giving you good guidance. Don’t turn away from my instructions.
Parallel translations
- WEB for I give you sound learning. Don’t forsake my law.
- KJV For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.
- BSB For I give you sound teaching; do not abandon my directive.
- NKJV For I give you good doctrine: Do not forsake my law.
- NASB For I give you good teaching; Do not abandon my instruction.
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 father gives sound teaching and pleads that it not be forsaken. His instruction is trustworthy and life-giving.
Overview
The teacher commends his own teaching as 'good doctrine' (sound learning) and urges that his 'torah' (instruction) not be abandoned. The appeal underscores that wisdom is not optional advice but a reliable guide to be retained. As all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable (2 Tim 3:16), such teaching is to be held fast.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- 1 Tim 4:6If you instruct the brothers of these things, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed.
- Deut 32:2My doctrine will drop as the rain. My speech will condense as the dew, as the misty rain on the tender grass, as the showers on the herb.
- Titus 1:9holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict those who contradict him.
- Job 33:3My words shall utter the uprightness of my heart. That which my lips know they shall speak sincerely.
- Ps 89:30–32If his children forsake my law, and don’t walk in my ordinances;
- Prov 8:6–9Hear, for I will speak excellent things. The opening of my lips is for right things.
- John 7:16–17Jesus therefore answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.
- 2 Chr 7:19But if you turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;
- 1 Chr 28:9You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.
- Job 11:4For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes.’
- Ps 49:1–3For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. Hear this, all you peoples. Listen, all you inhabitants of the world,
- Prov 22:20–21Haven’t I written to you thirty excellent things of counsel and knowledge,
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 4:2 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.