Proverbs 13:2

From the fruit of his speech ¹  a person eats good things, ²  but the faithless ³  desire ⁴  the fruit of violence. ⁵ 

From the fruit of his lips a man enjoys good things, but the unfaithful have a craving for violence.

From the fruit of a man’s mouth he enjoys good, But the desire of the treacherous is violence.

Good people enjoy the positive results of their words, but those who are treacherous crave violence.

The good acquire a taste for helpful conversation; bullies push and shove their way through life.

A man will get good from the fruit of his lips, but the desire of the false is for violent acts.

From the fruit of their words good persons eat good things, but the desire of the treacherous is for wrongdoing.

A man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth, But the soul of the unfaithful feeds on violence.

From the fruit of his speech ¹  a person eats good things, ²  but the faithless ³  desire ⁴  the fruit of violence. ⁵ 

¹ tn Heb “lips” (so NIV); KJV “mouth.” The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause for what the lips produce: speech.

² tn Heb “he eats [what is] good.”

³ tn Heb “the desire of the faithless.” The noun “faithless” is a subjective genitive: “the faithless desire….”

⁴ tn The noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, traditionally “soul”) has a broad range of meanings, and here denotes “appetite” (e.g., Ps 17:9; Prov 23:3; Eccl 2:24; Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5; BDB 660 s.v. 5.c) or (2) “desire” (e.g., Deut 12:20; Prov 13:4; 19:8; 21:10; BDB 660 s.v. 6.a).

⁵ tn Heb “violence.” The phrase “the fruit of” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the parallelism. The term “violence” is probably a metonymy of cause: “violence” represents what violence gains – ill-gotten gains resulting from violent crime. The wicked desire what does not belong to them.

tc The LXX reads “the souls of the wicked perish untimely.” The MT makes sense as it stands.