“Treasures gained by wickedness”: This line may be taken as a warning to the sons of verse 1. “Treasures” refers to material objects of value such as wealth or goods. The Hebrew says literally “treasures of wickedness,” which means wealth obtained unjustly or from wrong means, that is, “ill-gotten wealth.” Note that Good News Translation (“Wealth you get by dishonesty”) switches to direct address.

“Do not profit”: In Job 21.15 Job asks “What profit do we get if we pray to him?” The sense is “What advantage?” Here we may say “have no advantage” or “will do no good.” New Jerusalem Bible has “Treasures wickedly come by give no benefit,” and Revised English Bible says “No good comes of ill-gotten wealth.” We may also say, for example, “It does no good to get riches dishonestly.” A more direct approach is “If you follow bad ways and become rich, your money will not make you live well.”

“But righteousness delivers from death”: This line is repeated in 11.4b. “Righteousness” contrasts with “wickedness” here and in a number of other verses in this chapter. Since “wickedness” in the first line refers to all manner of wrong or evil ways of obtaining wealth, “righteousness” refers to being good, fair, just, or honest. “Delivers from death” is understood in various ways by interpreters and translators. The thought may be that right living and honesty, in contrast to dishonesty in the first line, guarantee a person a long life, as is suggested in 3.2. In this case the thought may be translated “honesty saves you from an early death” or “right living will give you a long life.” In some languages it is unnatural for a quality such as goodness or honesty to save or deliver a person. However, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch offers a model translation in which God is introduced as the one who saves: “but God saves from an early death the one who obeys him.” Another rendering is that of Bible en français courant, in which the whole verse says “Goods wrongly obtained are never profitable, only honest earnings enable a person to live.”

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 .