Proverbs 26

Fools Recycle Silliness

¹26We no more give honors to fools

than pray for snow in summer or rain during harvest.

²You have as little to fear from an undeserved curse

as from the dart of a wren or the swoop of a swallow.

³A whip for the racehorse, a tiller for the sailboat—

and a stick for the back of fools!

⁴Don’t respond to the stupidity of a fool;

you’ll only look foolish yourself.

⁵Answer a fool in simple terms

so he doesn’t get a swelled head.

⁶You’re only asking for trouble

when you send a message by a fool.

⁷A proverb quoted by fools

is limp as a wet noodle.

⁸Putting a fool in a place of honor

is like setting a mud brick on a marble column.

⁹To ask a moron to quote a proverb

is like putting a scalpel in the hands of a drunk.

¹⁰Hire a fool or a drunk

and you shoot yourself in the foot.

¹¹As a dog eats its own vomit,

so fools recycle silliness.

¹²See that man who thinks he’s so smart?

You can expect far more from a fool than from him.

¹³Loafers say, “It’s dangerous out there!

Tigers are prowling the streets!”

and then pull the covers back over their heads.

¹⁴Just as a door turns on its hinges,

so a lazybones turns back over in bed.

¹⁵A shiftless sluggard puts his fork in the pie,

but is too lazy to lift it to his mouth.

Like Glaze on Cracked Pottery

¹⁶Dreamers fantasize their self-importance;

they think they are smarter

than a whole college faculty.

¹⁷You grab a mad dog by the ears

when you butt into a quarrel that’s none of your business.

^18–19People who shrug off deliberate deceptions,

saying, “I didn’t mean it, I was only joking,”

Are worse than careless campers

who walk away from smoldering campfires.

²⁰When you run out of wood, the fire goes out;

when the gossip ends, the quarrel dies down.

²¹A quarrelsome person in a dispute

is like kerosene thrown on a fire.

²²Listening to gossip is like eating cheap candy;

do you want junk like that in your belly?

²³Smooth talk from an evil heart

is like glaze on cracked pottery.

^24–26Your enemy shakes hands and greets you like an old friend,

all the while conniving against you.

When he speaks warmly to you, don’t believe him for a minute;

he’s just waiting for the chance to rip you off.

No matter how cunningly he conceals his malice,

eventually his evil will be exposed in public.

²⁷Malice backfires;

spite boomerangs.

²⁸Liars hate their victims;

flatterers sabotage trust.