22:11

This verse describes the character traits that are necessary to be a friend of the king.

11a He who loves a pure heart and gracious lips

11b will have the king for a friend.

The first line describes the character traits. The second line gives the result—the king is his friend.

22:11a

He who loves a pure heart and gracious lips: There are two main ways to interpret this part of the verse:

(1) It refers to a person who loves a pure heart and speaks graciously. For example:

Those who love a pure heart and are gracious in speech (New Revised Standard Version)

(2) It refers to a person who loves a pure heart and also loves gracious speech. For example:

Whoever loves pure thoughts and kind words (New Century Version)

It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1), along with most versions and scholars.

He
who loves a pure heart: This clause refers to a person who values sincerity in himself. He wants his own thoughts and motives to be pure, unmixed with anything that is evil. The word pure was last used in 15:26b, where it referred to gracious words. See how you translated the word in that context.

and gracious lips: The second character trait that this person has is that he speaks kindly and persuasively. He speaks in a way that pleases and attracts others.

Some other ways to translate 22:11a are:

If a person values pure thoughts and uses kind words
-or-
Those who truly want to be sincere and who speak in a way that is pleasant to others

22:11b

will have the king for a friend: The result of being sincere and speaking graciously is that even someone as important as the king will be this person’s friend. One way to make this emphasis explicit is:

even the king will be one of his friends

General Comment on 22:11a–b

In some languages, it may be more natural to change the order of the two lines. For example:

The king is the friend of all who are sincere and speak with kindness. (Contemporary English Version)

The Display for 22:11a–b (combined/reordered) uses a rhetorical question along with reordering. This may be a good option for some languages.

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