Proverbs 13

Guard your mouth, the honest wealth of slow work versus quick dishonest gain, and the company you keep shapes you. Verse 12 is honest about the emotional cost of waiting: "hope deferred makes the heart sick." It doesn't shame that feeling; it names it. Verse 23 notes that the poor can work productive land and still lose it to injustice. Poverty isn't always laziness.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life." (Proverbs 13:12)

"He who walks with the wise will become wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed." (Proverbs 13:20)