Proverbs 26:12

Do you see ¹  a man wise in his own eyes? ²  There is more hope for a fool ³  than for him.

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

There is more hope for fools than for people who think they are wise.

See that man who thinks he's so smart? You can expect far more from a fool than from him.

Have you seen a man who seems to himself to be wise? There is more hope for the foolish than for him.

Do you see persons wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for fools than for them.

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Do you see ¹  a man wise in his own eyes? ²  There is more hope for a fool ³  than for him.

¹ tn The verse simply uses a perfect tense. The meaning of the verse would be the same if this were interpreted as an affirmation rather than as an interrogative. The first line calls such a person to one’s attention.

² tn Heb “in his own eyes” (so NAB, NASB, NIV).

sn The subject matter of the verse is the person who is wise in his own opinion. Self-conceit is actually part of the folly that the book of Proverbs criticizes; those who think they are wise even though they are not are impossible to help. For someone to think he is wise when he is not makes him a conceited ignoramus (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 268).

³ sn Previous passages in the book of Proverbs all but deny the possibility of hope for the fool. So this proverb is saying there is absolutely no hope for the self-conceited person, and there might be a slight hope for the fool – he may yet figure out that he really is a fool.