Proverbs 22:26
Be not one of those who give their hands in an agreement, or of those who make themselves responsible for debts:
Bible in Basic English
In The King James Version
Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.
In Context
25For fear of learning his ways and making a net ready for your soul.
27If you have nothing with which to make payment, he will take away your bed from under you.
Cross References
Proverbs 11:15He who makes himself responsible for a strange man will undergo much loss; but the hater of such undertakings will be safe.
Proverbs 27:13Take a man's clothing if he makes himself responsible for a strange man, and get an undertaking from him who gives his word for strange men.
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 →