Proverbs 22:26
If someone borrows money, do not be one of those who promises to pay what that person owes he cannot pay it back,
Translation for Translators
In The King James Version
Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.
In Context
25because you might start to act like they do and not be able to stop doing that.
Cross References
Proverbs 11:15If you promise a stranger that you will pay his debt if he cannot pay it himself, you will regret it. You will be safe if you refuse to guarantee that you will pay someone else’s debts.
Proverbs 27:13You deserve to have your property taken from you if you foolishly promise to a stranger (OR, a strange woman) that you will pay what she owes if she is unable to pay it [DOU].
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 →