Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes,
so is the sluggard to those who send him.
The fear of the Lord prolongs life,
but the years of the wicked will be short.
The hope of the righteous brings joy,
but the expectation of the wicked will perish.
The way of the Lord is a stronghold to the blameless,
but destruction to evildoers.
The righteous will never be removed,
but the wicked will not dwell in the land.
The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom,
but the perverse tongue will be cut off.
The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,
but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.Proverbs 10:26-32
The sluggard ( 26) gets very little shrift in the book of Proverbs (cf 6-9, 10, 12:27, 13:4, 15:19, 18:9, 19:24, 21:25, 26, 22:13, 26:13, 15, 16. Here, his 'nuisance-value' is graphically indicated, particularly to those who have the misfortune to employ him. The evocative metaphors both suggest the lingering unpleasantness and inconvenience he causes as something it is impossible to ignore. The contrasts in 27-30, both in the interim and in the ultimate, are clear, plain and unequivocal. What is said in 27 expresses a medical as well as a spiritual reality: evil living is bad for the constitution, as we are having proved to us more and more by medical science. For both worlds the lawless are not gainers, but losers, by their wilful rejection of the Word of life, while 'godliness is profitable in all things, both in the life that now is, and in that which is to come'. A host of testimony-bearers on each side come up to confirm the solemn truths here enumerated so pithily. Cain and Abel; Noah and the antediluvian world; Abraham and his idolatrous kin; Isaac and Ishmael; Jacob and Esau; Joseph and his accusers; all in the first book of the Bible, with a vast number throughout its remaining books, witness the great contrast which the testimony of experience in all ages has but confirmed (Ironside). The chapter ends with two final observations about words and the fruit of the lips. The difference between the righteous and the wicked, the wise and the foolish, comes out in the way they speak. Speech reveals the state of the heart. Wisdom produces seemliness (see Colossians 4:5, 6), while it’s opposite gives a perverse twist to life. Such are the alternatives that the father of the earlier chapters sets before his son, and bids him take stock.