“He who diligently seeks good seeks favor”: The main difficulty in this saying is the use of the term “favor”. “Favor” refers to good will or acceptance, which some understand here to mean the good will of people. See Good News Translation “you will be respected.” Contemporary English Version has “Try hard to do right, and you will win friends.” On the other hand, “favor” may be taken to mean the “favor” of God, in which case it may mean that the person is seeking to have God prefer him or that he seeks for God to do good for others. Bible en français courant follows this approach with “God approves of the one who seeks to act rightly.” It seems that only this second approach is consistent with the emphases of the book of Proverbs.

“Diligently seeks” renders a verb related to the noun “dawn” and has the sense of seeking at dawn or seeking early, which may be taken in the sense of Revised Standard Version “diligently”. “Good” is not an abstract quality but refers to good conduct or acting justly; in the light of this, “diligently seeks good” may be expressed as “tries hard to follow what is good” or “works to do what is right.” The second “seeks” in this line translates a different word than the first one and means to search for or try to find.

“But evil comes to him who searches for it”: In contrast to someone who seeks to do what is right, we have here someone who looks for evil. “Evil” refers to unfortunate or bad circumstances, difficult times, or unrest, and is personified here as coming to the person. “Searches” is yet another word with a similar meaning to the two words for “seeks” in the first line. Contemporary English Version translates this line “Go looking for trouble, and you will find it.”

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 .