10:8

Notice the parallel parts that contrast in meaning:

8a
A wise heart will receive commandments,

8b but foolish lips will come to ruin.

The parallelism is not exact. The parallel lines imply that people who are wise do not come to ruin. They also imply that the fool does not pay attention to advice.

10:8a

A wise heart will receive commandments: The phrase A wise heart is a figure of speech. It refers to a wise person.

wise:

will receive commandments: This phrase means that a wise person does not only listen to commands or instruction. He also obeys them. Some other ways to translate this line are:

The wise are glad to be instructed (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
The wise do what they are told (New Century Version)
-or-
If you have good sense, you will listen and obey (Contemporary English Version)

The verse also implies that the commands/advice which the wise person accepts are good. The Good News Translation makes this explicit:

Sensible people accept good advice (Good News Translation)

You may or may not need to make this explicit in your language.

10:8b

but foolish lips will come to ruin: The phrase foolish lips is literally “a fool of lips.” This is a figure of speech. It represents “a person who speaks foolishly” or “a foolish talker.” It is implied that this person talks a lot.

foolish: In Hebrew, this word for foolish refers to someone who is a moral fool. It does not refer to someone who is uneducated or who lacks intelligence. A moral fool is someone who is unable or unwilling to do what is right or to avoid what is wrong. This kind of fool does stupid and wrong things because of his evil character.

will come to ruin: The verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as will come to ruin literally means “is thrown down.” Some English versions have used a similar literal expression. For example:

babbling fools fall flat on their faces (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
the one who talks foolishly will be thrown down headfirst (God’s Word)

But in most languages, it may be clearer to use the figurative meaning. For example:

a talkative fool will be ruined (New Century Version)

This verse does not specify the kind of ruin or trouble that the fool will experience. Nor does it make explicit who ruins the fool. If you need to specify the person who causes the fool’s downfall, it is probably the fool himself. For example:

If you always talk like a fool, you will destroy/ruin your own life.

© 2012, 2016, 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.