Proverbs 22:26
Be thou not one of those who strike hands, [or] of those who are sureties for debts.
A Conservative Version
In The King James Version
Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.
In Context
25lest thou learn this ways, and get a snare to thy soul.
27If thou have not wherewith to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?
Cross References
Proverbs 11:15He who is surety for a stranger shall smart for it, but he who hates suretyship is secure.
Proverbs 27:13Take his garment who is surety for a stranger, and hold him in pledge [who is surety] for a strange woman.
Matthew Henry on Proverbs 22:25-26
Prudential Maxims. 24 Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: 25 Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul. Here is, 1. A good caution against being intimate with a passionate man. It is the law of friendship that we accommodate ourselves to our friends and be ready to serve them, and therefore we ought to be wise and wary in the choice of a friend, that we come not under the sacred tie to any one whom it would be our folly to accommodate ourselves to. Thought we… Read the whole commentary →