Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
Parallel translations
- WEB Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.
- BSB Keep my commandments and live; guard my teachings as the apple of your 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 the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
- 1 Jn 2:3–4And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
- Prov 4:4He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.
- Lev 18:5Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD.
- John 14:21He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
- 1 Jn 5:1–3Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.
- Isa 55:3Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
- Prov 4:13Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life.
- John 12:49–50For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
- Deut 32:10He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
- John 15:14Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
- Zech 2:8For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
- Rev 22:14Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
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
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