Don't Wear Yourself Out
Listen, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart on the right course. Proverbs 23:19 · Berean Standard Bible
Listen carefully to wise teaching, absorb it deeply, and let it guide your choices and the direction your life takes.
The teacher is making a direct appeal: my son, pay attention. Don't just hear these words—let them reshape how you think and choose. Your heart needs to be guided, and wisdom is what does that guiding.
A father or wise teacher speaking to a young person
This is the constant refrain of Proverbs—wisdom is available to you if you'll actually receive it. Your life becomes what you choose to listen to and follow.
Listen to wisdom instruction with full attention, and actively direct your heart toward the right path—integrating understanding into deliberate moral choice.
The command to 'listen' paired with the imperative to 'be wise' frames hearing not as passive reception but active appropriation. The phrase 'guide your heart' (הנח לבך, hanach levcha—literally 'incline your heart') emphasizes volition; wisdom requires not merely intellectual assent but conscious redirection of desire and intention toward righteousness.
The father-sage, concluding his extended instruction with a synthesis that emphasizes the integration of hearing, understanding, and deliberate moral action.
This verse synthesizes the entire wisdom tradition's conviction that human formation requires sustained attention to instruction combined with conscious choice—a dynamic that the New Testament reframes through the metaphor of putting on the new self and transforming the mind through the renewing of thought.
17Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always continue in the fear of the LORD.
18For surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
19Listen, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart on the right course.
20Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat.
21For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe them in rags.
Read all of Proverbs 23 — Do not wear yourself out to get rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint. Riches sprout wings and fly away like an eagle.
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