Keep my commandments and live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.
Parallel translations
- WEB Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.
- KJV Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
- NKJV Keep my commands and live, And my law as the apple of your eye.
- NASB Keep my commandments and live, And my teaching as the apple of your eye.
- NLT Obey my commands and live! Guard my instructions as you guard your own eyes.
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
Keep these commandments and you will truly live; guard the teaching as your most precious possession. Wisdom is life-giving and worth protecting.
Overview
The father links obedience to life and urges the son to guard his teaching as the 'apple of his eye,' the most carefully protected part. This echoes the Law's promise that keeping God's commands leads to life. It frames wisdom as something to be cherished and defended above all.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Ps 17:8Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings
- 1 Jn 2:3–4By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments.
- Prov 4:4he taught me and said, “Let your heart lay hold of my words; keep my commands and you will live.
- Lev 18:5Keep My statutes and My judgments, for the man who does these things will live by them. I am the LORD.
- John 14:21Whoever 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.”
- 1 Jn 5:1–3Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves those born of Him.
- Isa 55:3Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.
- Prov 4:13Hold on to instruction; do not let go. Guard it, for it is your life.
- John 12:49–50I have not spoken on My own, but the Father who sent Me has commanded Me what to say and how to say it.
- Deut 32:10He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.
- John 15:14You are My friends if you do what I command you.
- Zech 2:8For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “After His Glory has sent Me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye—
- Rev 22:14Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by its gates.
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 7:2 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.