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Proverbs 14:25
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition
Proverbs 14:25
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition
25 A truthful witness saves lives,
but one who utters lies is a betrayer.
Proverbs 14:25
Authorized (King James) Version
Proverbs 14:25
Authorized (King James) Version
25 A true witness delivereth souls:
but a deceitful witness speaketh lies.
Proverbs 14:25
New English Translation
Proverbs 14:25
New English Translation
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Footnotes
- Proverbs 14:25 tn Heb “a witness of truth”; cf. CEV “an honest witness.”
- Proverbs 14:25 tn The noun נְפָשׁוֹת (nefashot) often means “souls,” but here “lives”—it functions as a metonymy for life (BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 3.c).sn The setting of this proverb is the courtroom. One who tells the truth “saves” (מַצִּיל [matsil, “rescues; delivers”]) the lives of those falsely accused.
- Proverbs 14:25 tc In the MT the verb lacks agreement with the two nouns in either gender or number so that there is no clear subject: “but he breathes lies, deceit.” Revocalizing the consonants from וְיָפִחַ (veyafiakh, “and he breathes/testifies”) to וִיפֵחַ (vifeakh, “and a witness [of lies]”) and from מִרְמָה (mirmah, “deceit”) to the Piel participle מְרַמֶּה (merammeh, “betrays, deceives, leads astray”) produces a grammatically acceptable text. One may also supply by parallelism “…betrays lives.”
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
KJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK.
New English Translation (NET)
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