Proverbs 4:16

16 Sinners can't sleep until they do what is evil. They can't rest until they make someone fall.

Proverbs 4:16 Meaning and Commentary

Proverbs 4:16

For they sleep not, except they have done mischief
Or they cannot sleep, as Jarchi and Gersom interpret it. Oftentimes they cannot sleep on their beds for devising mischief, their thoughts are so intensely set on contriving wicked schemes; and when they have so done, they cannot sleep until they have executed them; they are continually restless and uneasy day and night, like the troubled sea, constantly casting up mire and dirt. Who would keep such company as these? and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause [some] to fall;
into the snares and traps they lay for them, or into sin and calamity by it; the former of which they endeavour by all means to draw men into, and the latter is the unavoidable consequence of it. They imitate their father the devil, both delight in sin, and in the ruin of their fellow creatures; it is a sport to thereto do mischief, and they have no pleasure without it; see ( Proverbs 11:23 ) . What company are such!

Proverbs 4:16 In-Context

14 Don't take the path of evil people. Don't live the way sinners do.
15 Stay away from their path. Don't travel on it. Turn away from it. Go on your way.
16 Sinners can't sleep until they do what is evil. They can't rest until they make someone fall.
17 They do evil just as easily as they eat food. They hurt others as easily as they drink wine.
18 The path of those who do what is right is like the first gleam of dawn. It shines brighter and brighter until the full light of day.
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