Verses 23-27 close chapter 4 and this subdivision. The teacher uses as images various body parts from the heart to the head and finally to the feet.

“Keep your heart with all vigilance”: “Keep your heart” means to guard your thoughts; see Good News Translation. In some languages this is expressed as “Watch your mind,” “Keep a hand on your head,” or “Take care of your thoughts.” According to Brown, Driver, and Briggs, “with all vigilance” is literally “above all guarding,” that is, “more than anything else you may guard.” New Jerusalem Bible translates “More than all else, keep watch over your heart,” and New Jewish Publication Society Version has “More than all that you guard, guard your mind.” We may also say, for example, “The most important thing you can do is be careful what you think” or “The most important . . . is to think good thoughts.”

“For from it flow the springs of life”: The thought expressed here is that what people think, what is in their minds, determines how they will act. See Matt 15.19. “From it” means “from the heart [mind].” The word rendered “flow the springs” usually refers to the extremity or border of a geographical territory, but in association with “life” it seems to have the sense of a source or place of origin. The thought is that a person’s life is somehow determined by the thoughts stored in the heart or mind: “Everything you do comes out of your heart.” Contemporary English Version says “Carefully guard your thoughts because they are the source of true life.” Good News Translation translates this verse into very direct language and may serve as a model for translation.

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 .