Proverbs 12

Good people learn from others

1People who love to learn will embrace correction when they’re wrong.
People who hate correction get to stay stupid.
2The LORD approves of good people,
Not the evil ones, whom he condemns.
3Evil keeps bad people from planting their roots and settling down into stable lives.
Roots of good people run deep and hold strong.
4A great wife makes her husband proud.
A deplorable wife shames him to the bone.
5Good people make plans that are fair.
Bad people make plans that deceive.
6Bad people use their words to ambush.
Good people use their words to save.
7Bad people eventually get overrun, lose everything, and die.
A good person’s family lives on.

People avoid the scatterbrained

8People warm up to folks with common sense and good judgment.
But they can’t stand an unpredictable and scatterbrained person.
9It’s better to be regular folk with someone working for you,
Than to be the kind of people who brag about themselves,
When they can’t pay the grocery bill.

Be kind to animals

10Good people are kind even to their animals.
But the kindest act of a rotten human stinks of cruelty.
11If you plow your fields and work the land, you’ll have plenty of food.
It makes no sense to do otherwise, and waste your time goofing off.
12Bad people get jealous when see they how much someone else stole.
Good people have solid resources that keep producing.
13Bad people trip over their own lying lips.
Good people don’t have a lip problem.
14People get rewarded for what they say, and are satisfied.
Hard work rewards them, too.
15Fools think it’s their way or no way,
But wise people take advice.
16It’s easy to spot a hot-tempered idiot.
An even-tempered person shrugs off the insults.

Ambushed and stabbed by words

17An honest witness does the right thing and tells the truth.
A dishonest witness doesn’t.
18Some use their words like a sword, ambushing and stabbing others.
Wise people use their words to heal.
19True words have a long shelf life—they’re eternal.
Lies come and go.
20Bad people who want to do something bad have deceit on their mind.
Good people who want to do something peaceful have joy in the heart.
21Good and godly people aren’t the ones who are going to get hurt.
Bad people get a wagonload of trouble.
22The LORD hates to hear the flapping of lying lips.
But he loves it when people stay true to him.
23Sensible people don’t show off how smart they are.
Fools show off how dumb they are.
24Hard workers become leaders.
Lazy bums get sold into slavery as forced labor.

Rx for anxiety: kind words

25Anxiety can weigh heavy on a person.
But kind words can make a person happy again.
26People can follow the example of a good person.
But an evil person will take them in the wrong way.
27A lazy person has nothing to cook.
An industrious person is rich.
28Living the right kind of life, as a good person, leads to life.
There’s no death along this trail.