SELECTIONS FROM THE PROVERBS
PROVERBS
Proverbs is a collection of sayings of wise men, coming from many sources and gathered by many men. It is a little library of smaller books. The poetry is more uniform than any other in the Bible. The subjects, on the contrary, are the most various. All sides of life are represented. But chiefly the proverbs are concerned with showing the wisdom of living a good, honest, industrious life, and the foolishness of being lazy, immoral, greedy for money, and evil in thought and conduct. A great deal is said about the fool. He is the one who is shortsighted and careless of consequences; who talks slander and so hurts his friends; who forgets that the laws of God punish evil doing, and so hurts himself. The idea is that the wicked man acts as though he had not common sense.