Proverbs 4:16
New International Version
For they cannot rest until they do evil; they are robbed of sleep till they make someone stumble.

New Living Translation
For evil people can’t sleep until they’ve done their evil deed for the day. They can’t rest until they’ve caused someone to stumble.

English Standard Version
For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong; they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble.

Berean Standard Bible
For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.

King James Bible
For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

New King James Version
For they do not sleep unless they have done evil; And their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall.

New American Standard Bible
For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.

NASB 1995
For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.

NASB 1977
For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.

Legacy Standard Bible
For they do not sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.

Amplified Bible
For the wicked cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are deprived of sleep unless they make someone stumble and fall.

Christian Standard Bible
For they can’t sleep unless they have done what is evil; they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
For they can’t sleep unless they have done what is evil; they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.

American Standard Version
For they sleep not, except they do evil; And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
They do not sleep until they do evil and their sleep flees away until they do their desires.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
For they cannot sleep, unless they have done evil: their sleep is taken away, and they rest not.

Contemporary English Version
They can't sleep or rest until they do wrong or harm some innocent victim.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For they sleep not except they have done evil: and their sleep is taken away unless they have made some to fall.

English Revised Version
For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Wicked people cannot sleep unless they do wrong, and they are robbed of their sleep unless they make someone stumble.

Good News Translation
Wicked people cannot sleep unless they have done something wrong. They lie awake unless they have hurt someone.

International Standard Version
For they cannot sleep unless they are doing evil, and they are robbed of their sleep unless they cause someone to stumble.

JPS Tanakh 1917
For they sleep not, except they have done evil; And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

Literal Standard Version
For they do not sleep if they do no evil, | And their sleep has been taken away violently, | If they do not cause [some] to stumble.

Majority Standard Bible
For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.

New American Bible
For they cannot rest unless they have done evil; if they do not trip anyone they lose sleep.

NET Bible
For they cannot sleep unless they cause harm; they are robbed of sleep until they make someone stumble.

New Revised Standard Version
For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong; they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble.

New Heart English Bible
For they do not sleep, unless they do evil. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall.

Webster's Bible Translation
For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

World English Bible
For they don’t sleep unless they do evil. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall.

Young's Literal Translation
For they sleep not if they do not evil, And their sleep hath been taken violently away, If they cause not some to stumble.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
A Father's Instruction
15Avoid it; do not travel on it. Turn from it and pass on by. 16For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall. 17For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.…

Cross References
Psalm 36:4
Even on his bed he plots wickedness; he sets himself on a path that is not good; he fails to reject evil.

Proverbs 4:15
Avoid it; do not travel on it. Turn from it and pass on by.

Micah 2:1
Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning's light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.

Micah 7:3
Both hands are skilled at evil; the prince and the judge demand a bribe. When the powerful utters his evil desire, they all conspire together.


Treasury of Scripture

For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

Proverbs 1:16
For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

Psalm 36:4
He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.

Isaiah 57:20
But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

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Proverbs 4
1. persuades to wisdom
14. and to show wickedness
20. He exhorts to sanctification














(16) For they sleep not . . .--The practice of evil has become as it were a second nature to them, they cannot live without it.

Verse 16. - This verse exhibits the extreme depravity and debasement into which "the wicked" (r'shaim) and "the evil" (raim) of ver. 14 have fallen. Their sins are not sins of frailty, but arise from premeditation and from their insatiable desire to commit wickedness. Sin has become to them a kind of second nature, and, unless they indulge in it, sleep is banished from their eyes. They sleep not; lo-yish'nu, future of yashan, "to fall asleep;" the future here being used for the present, as is frequently the case in the Proverbs, and denoting a permanent condition or habit. Unless they cause some to fall; i.e. "unless they have betrayed others into sin," taking the verb in an ethical sense (Zockler), or, which is preferable, owing to ver. 16a, unless they have done them some injury (Mercerus); Vulgate, nisi supplantaverint. For the Khetib yik'shulu, kal, which would mean "unless they have stumbled or fallen," the Keri substitutes the hiph. yak'shihi "unless they have caused some to fall." The hiph. is found without any object, as here, in 2 Chronicles 25:8). (On the verb khasal, from which it is derived, see ch. 4:12.) With the statement of the verse we may compare David's complaint of the persistent persecution of his enemies (Psalm 59:15), "If they be not satisfied, then will they stay all night" (margin). A similar construction to the one before us occurs in Virgil: "Et si non aliqua nocuisses, mortuus esses" - "And had you not, by some means or other done him an injury, you would have died" ('Eclog.,' 3:15); cf. also Juvenal: "Ergo non aliter poterit dormire; quibusdam somnum rixa facit" - "Therefore, not otherwise, would he have slept; contention to some produces sleep." Hitzig rejects vers. 16 and 17 against all manuscript authority.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
For
כִּ֤י (kî)
Conjunction
Strong's 3588: A relative conjunction

they cannot
לֹ֣א (lō)
Adverb - Negative particle
Strong's 3808: Not, no

sleep
יִֽ֭שְׁנוּ (yiš·nū)
Verb - Qal - Imperfect - third person masculine plural
Strong's 3462: To be slack, languid, sleep, to grow old, stale, inveterate

unless
אִם־ (’im-)
Conjunction
Strong's 518: Lo!, whether?, if, although, Oh that!, when, not

they do evil,
יָרֵ֑עוּ (yā·rê·‘ū)
Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person masculine plural
Strong's 7489: To spoil, to make, good for, nothing, bad

they are deprived
וְֽנִגְזְלָ֥ה (wə·niḡ·zə·lāh)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Nifal - Conjunctive perfect - third person feminine singular
Strong's 1497: To pluck off, to flay, strip, rob

of slumber
שְׁ֝נָתָ֗ם (nā·ṯām)
Noun - feminine singular construct | third person masculine plural
Strong's 8142: Sleep

until
אִם־ (’im-)
Conjunction
Strong's 518: Lo!, whether?, if, although, Oh that!, when, not

they make someone fall,
יַכְשִֽׁילוּ׃ (yaḵ·šî·lū)
Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person masculine plural
Strong's 3782: To totter, waver, to falter, stumble, faint, fall


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OT Poetry: Proverbs 4:16 For they don't sleep unless they do (Prov. Pro Pr)
Proverbs 4:15
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