Proverbs 14:1-2

14:1 Every wise woman ¹  builds ²  her household, ³ 

but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.

14:2 The one who walks in his uprightness fears the Lord, ⁴ 

but the one who is perverted in his ways ⁵  despises him.

¹ tn Heb “wise ones of women.” The construct phrase חַכְמוֹת נָשִׁים (khakhmot nashim) features a wholistic genitive: “wise women.” The plural functions in a distributive sense: “every wise woman.” The contrast is between wise and foolish women (e.g., Prov 7:10-23; 31:10-31).

² tn The perfect tense verb in the first colon functions in a gnomic sense, while the imperfect tense in the second colon is a habitual imperfect.

³ tn Heb “house.” This term functions as a synecdoche of container (= house) for contents (= household, family).

⁴ tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive.

⁵ tn Heb “crooked of ways”; NRSV “devious in conduct.” This construct phrase features a genitive of specification: “crooked in reference to his ways.” The term “ways” is an idiom for moral conduct. The evidence that people fear the Lord is uprightness; the evidence of those who despise him is the devious ways.