Wicked men and wisdom

¹² Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, ¹³ who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, ¹⁴ who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, ¹⁵ whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.

Proverbs 2:12-15

We continue our study of Proverbs and we come to a passage which is a warning about wicked men. Though not worded as a warning against associating with wicked, we are told that wisdom will save us from such men. Let's look at what the passage says about them.

Discussion

• When it says "Wisdom will save you" it implies snatching you away from or rescuing you from these wicked men. It seems to me to be an active verb. Picture, if you will, someone pulling you out of the way of a car that would otherwise have hit you. This is what it means here in saying wisdom will save you from the ways wicked or evil men. It's not just that these men are evil, but the way they live their life is evil.
• We also see in verse 12 that what they say and promise to people is perverse or foolish or deceitful.
• they leave the straight paths or the upright paths. In other words they if there's a right thing to do and a wrong thing to do, they don't do the right thing.
• They also walk in dark ways - they like to keep what they are doing hidden from others. This makes me think of the number of times we've read about the Hardy Boys being attacked by men who were hiding in dark places.
• In verse 14, we see that these men delight in doing wrong - doing evil things make them happy!
• They rejoice in the foolishness of bad things.
• Their paths are crooked - twisted, distorted - not the right way to go.
• They are devious is their ways. Devious implies that their ways are bent or turned away from the way they should go.
• Even at your age, I'm sure you can see evidence of other people making choices like the men describe here. Can you think of any examples?
• Do you think it's good to spend time around people like this?
• If wisdom saves you from the ways of these people, do you think you should spend time around people like this?
• In light of what we've read earlier about how wisdom calls out and they have rejected, what should we do for people like this?
• How can we pray for people like this and how can we pray for wisdom to save us?