World English Bible
- Don’t boast about tomorrow; for you don’t know what a day may bring.
- Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.
- A stone is heavy, and sand is a burden; but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both.
- Wrath is cruel, and anger is overwhelming; but who is able to stand before jealousy?
- Better is open rebuke than hidden love.
- The wounds of a friend are faithful, although the kisses of an enemy are profuse.
- A full soul loathes a honeycomb; but to a hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.
- As a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man who wanders from his home.
- Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart; so does earnest counsel from a man’s friend.
- Don’t forsake your friend and your father’s friend. Don’t go to your brother’s house in the day of your disaster. A neighbor who is near is better than a distant brother.
- Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart, then I can answer my tormentor.
- A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge; but the simple pass on, and suffer for it.
- Take his garment when he puts up collateral for a stranger. Hold it for a wayward woman!
- He who blesses his neighbor with a loud voice early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse by him.
- A continual dropping on a rainy day and a contentious wife are alike:
- restraining her is like restraining the wind, or like grasping oil in his right hand.
- Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens his friend’s countenance.
- Whoever tends the fig tree shall eat its fruit. He who looks after his master shall be honored.
- Like water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man.
- Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied; and a man’s eyes are never satisfied.
- The crucible is for silver, and the furnace for gold; but man is refined by his praise.
- Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with grain, yet his foolishness will not be removed from him.
- Know well the state of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds,
- for riches are not forever, nor does the crown endure to all generations.
- The hay is removed, and the new growth appears, the grasses of the hills are gathered in.
- The lambs are for your clothing, and the goats are the price of a field.
- There will be plenty of goats’ milk for your food, for your family’s food, and for the nourishment of your servant girls.
Proverbs 27 begins by taking tomorrow from our hands and ends by placing today’s flock before our eyes. Between them lies a theology of faithful attention.
We are warned not to boast about tomorrow—not because planning is sinful, but because the future is God’s possession. Boasting imagines tomorrow as stored grain already sitting in our barn. Faith plans humbly, adding, as James later teaches, “If the Lord wills” (James 4:13–15).
The chapter repeatedly turns us from imagined futures toward present faces: the friend who corrects us, the neighbor nearby, the master we serve, the animals requiring care. Verse 23 literally carries the sense, “Know well the face of your flock.” An ancient shepherd could not manage by spreadsheet or abstraction. He recognized limps, appetites, temperaments, and wounds. Biblical stewardship begins when people cease being categories and regain their faces.
Whose face has become invisible to you through familiarity?
“Iron sharpens iron” is often made to sound comfortable. It is not. Sharpening requires pressure, friction, and the removal of metal. Yet the Hebrew says one person sharpens another’s face or countenance. A true friend does not merely improve our arguments; through honest love, that friend helps restore our human face.
This explains the chapter’s startling claim that a friend’s wounds are faithful. Such words never excuse cruelty. The contrast is between love courageous enough to become visible and “hidden love” that leaves another person undisturbed but also unhelped. Christ loved openly: He confronted Peter’s presumption, exposed Martha’s anxious heart, and questioned the disciples’ fear. His rebukes were incisions made by the Great Physician, never blows from an irritated ego.
And Jesus Himself received an enemy’s kiss. Judas kissed profusely, while Christ remained the Friend whose wounds would heal His friends.
Verse 21 is unusually rich in Hebrew. It may mean that a person is tested by the praise received, or that a person is revealed by what he praises. Both are true. Criticism tests our security; praise tests our worship. Compliments reveal whether we quietly turn approval into identity. Our admiration reveals what our heart calls glorious.
Gregory the Great warned pastors that praise can secretly steal the virtue it appears to honor. The safest soul receives praise as a window receives sunlight: letting the brightness pass through toward its Source.
The chapter closes with grass, lambs, goats, milk, servants, and changing seasons. Crowns vanish; fields must still be tended. God’s wisdom is not escape from ordinary responsibility but reverence practiced within it. Attend to today’s faces. Receive faithful correction. Tend what God has actually entrusted to you. Tomorrow belongs to Him.
Suggested cross-references: James 4:13–15; John
10:3–14; John 15:13–15; Hebrews 3:13; 1 Peter 5:2–4
Suggested hymn: “Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners”
Lord of tomorrow and Shepherd of today, free me from imagined futures and neglected faces. Give me friends who speak truth, humility to receive it, and courage to love others honestly. Purify me through praise, correction, and daily duty, until my life reflects the faithful face of Christ. Amen.