Proverbs 18:8
The words of the double-tongued seem simple. And they reach even to the interior of the gut. Fear casts down the lazy, but the souls of the effeminate shall go hungry.
Catholic Public Domain Version
In The King James Version
The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.
In Context
7The mouth of the foolish is his destruction, and his own lips are the ruin of his soul.
9Whoever is dissolute and slack in his work is the brother of him who wastes his own works.
Cross References
Psalms 52:2They were corrupted, and they became abominable with iniquities. There is no one who does good.
Proverbs 12:18He who makes promises is also jabbed, as if with a sword, in conscience. But the tongue of the wise is reasonable.
Proverbs 26:20When the wood fails, the fire will be extinguished. And when the gossiper is taken away, conflicts will be quelled.
Matthew Henry on Proverbs 18:7-8
6 A fool's lips enter into contention, and his mouth calleth for strokes. 7 A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. Solomon has often shown what mischief bad men do to others with their ungoverned tongues; here he shows what mischief they do to themselves. 1. They embroil themselves in quarrels: A fool's lips, without any cause or call, enter into contention, by advancing foolish notions which others find themselves obliged to oppose, and so a quarrel is begun, or by giving… Read the whole commentary →