Proverbs 10:8-14

The mark of a wise man is not what he gives out but what he takes in — he receives commandments. The prating fool is all output: he talks constantly because he's empty, and people would never have known his head was so hollow if he hadn't kept ringing on it. The foam rides on the surface of the water; the pearl lies below.

Why does the upright man walk surely — no looking over the shoulder, no stories to keep straight? For the same reason a tall spire survives the storm: it bears its own weight because it stands plumb. Lean, and the building's own weight starts working against it. The crooked man "shall be known" — detection comes at last, always; nature's cry is "show me an easier path," but the child of God cries "show me a sure one."

The winker — the man of hints and nods and meaningful looks, who signals what he'd never dare say — does more damage than the blabbermouth, because his mischief can't be quoted back to him. Both come to grief. Be straightforward — and be circumspect; God's man needs no secret signals.

On the brown hillsides of dry country you can spot a spring from a mile away: a ring of living green around its lip, life printed in a circle wherever the water rises. That is a righteous man's mouth in a parched world — people and goodness grow green around it. Watch the fringe around a man's words: something is always growing there, and what grows tells you what's in the well.

Hatred is an agitator — it can make a quarrel out of anything. Love works the opposite trade: it covers — declines to repeat the story, refuses to keep the ledger, buries the offense instead of broadcasting it (1 Peter 4:8). Be precise about what this does and doesn't mean. Love covers my brother's sins from exposure; only the blood of Christ covers any man's sins from justice — the same Book that reveals Sinai reveals Calvary, and charity was never the price of pardon. Nor is covering a ban on correction — chapter 9 already taught when to speak. But for the daily friction of life, here's the math that makes covering easy: what is my brother's all against me, compared with my all against God? The man forgiven ten thousand talents can cover a hundred pence (Matthew 18).

Wisdom answers to a word; folly answers only to consequences. The old saying puts it bluntly: what a wise man gains by a hint, a fool only obtains by a club. You can take your instruction through the ear or take it across the back — but you will take it.

Wise men lay up knowledge for their own use; fools lay it out — everything they know is on display and on the move, and a mouth always in motion is "near destruction": one sentence from disaster all day long. Store more than you spend.