Proverbs 4:1

1 Listen, friends, to some fatherly advice; sit up and take notice so you'll know how to live.

Proverbs 4:1 Meaning and Commentary

Proverbs 4:1

Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father
Either of God their father, as Gersom interprets it; or rather of Solomon their father: and so he recommends his instruction from the relation he stood in to them; for, since he was their father, he would give them no bad instruction; and, since they were his children, they ought to receive it: by whom are meant, not his children in a natural sense, or the children of his body; but his disciples, such who applied to him for knowledge, and whom he undertook to learn; and attend to know understanding;
what would serve to enlighten, enlarge, improve, and inform their understandings; what would lead them into the knowledge and understanding of things divine and spiritual, and which would be worth knowing; and of having their understandings stored and enriched with.

Proverbs 4:1 In-Context

1 Listen, friends, to some fatherly advice; sit up and take notice so you'll know how to live.
2 I'm giving you good counsel; don't let it go in one ear and out the other.
3 When I was a boy at my father's knee, the pride and joy of my mother,
4 He would sit me down and drill me: "Take this to heart. Do what I tell you - live!
5 Sell everything and buy Wisdom! Forage for Understanding! Don't forget one word! Don't deviate an inch!
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.