Proverbs 4:23

4:23 Guard your heart with all vigilance, ¹ 

for from it are the sources ²  of life.

Micah 2:1-2

Land Robbers Will Lose their Land

2:1 Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, ³ 

those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. ⁴ 

As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, ⁵ 

because they have the power to do so.

2:2 They confiscate the fields they desire,

and seize the houses they want. ⁶ 

They defraud people of their homes, ⁷ 

and deprive people of the land they have inherited. ⁸ 

James 1:15

1:15 Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death.

[4:23]  ¹ tn Heb “more than all guarding.” This idiom means “with all vigilance.” The construction uses the preposition מִן (min) to express “above; beyond,” the word “all” and the noun “prison; guard; act of guarding.” The latter is the use here (BDB 1038 s.v. מִשְׁמָר).

[4:23]  ² sn The word תּוֹצְאוֹת (tots’ot, from יָצָא, yatsa’) means “outgoings; extremities; sources.” It is used here for starting points, like a fountainhead, and so the translation “sources” works well.

[2:1]  ³ tn Heb “Woe to those who plan sin.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”; “ah”) was a cry used in mourning the dead.

[2:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “those who do evil upon their beds.”

[2:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “at the light of morning they do it.”

[2:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “they desire fields and rob [them], and houses and take [them] away.”

[2:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “and they oppress a man and his home.”

[2:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “and a man and his inheritance.” The verb עָשַׁק (’ashaq, “to oppress”; “to wrong”) does double duty in the parallel structure and is understood by ellipsis in the second line.