“The desire of the righteous ends only in good”: “Desire . . . righteous” is as used in 10.24. “Ends” is supplied by Revised Standard Version. The Hebrew has “Desire of the righteous only good.” Because there is no verb in this line, Revised English Bible understands it to mean “The righteous desire only what is good.” However, the parallelism of the second line makes the Revised Standard Version translation of the first line more certain. “The desire of the righteous” means “The things that good people wish for” or “What the upright desire.” See Good News Translation, which also supplies a verb phrase, “results in.” “Good” here is to be taken to mean “good outcome” or “good results.” In some languages we may say, for example, “The things that good people want most bring them what is good.”

“The expectation of the wicked in wrath”: This line is literally “[The] expectation [of the] wicked wrath.” “Expectation”, meaning “hope,” as in 10.28 and in verse 7, refers to all that the wicked plan or count on. As in line 1, there is no verb, but the relation of “expectation” to “wrath” is that of “ends in,” “results in,” or “leads to.” The two lines are fully parallel and contrasting. New English Bible/Revised English Bible have changed the vowels of the word rendered “wrath” to get “nothing” and translate “comes to nothing.” This change, however, is unnecessary. “Wrath” may be taken to refer to the anger of God, as in Isa 13.13, or to the anger of people, as in Gen 49.7. See Good News Translation text and footnote. In the first case we may say, for example, “The hope of the wicked ends in God’s anger.” In the second case we may say, for example, “The hope of . . . ends in the anger of others” or “The things the wicked hope for only cause people to become angry.”

A translation of the whole verse that emphasizes the parallelism says “When the plans of a righteous person come to pass, only good things come out of it, but when the plans of a bad person come to pass, that makes God angry.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .