3:31

Notice the parallel commands. There is an implied progression from an attitude in 3:31a to an action in 3:31b.

31a Do not envy a violent man

31b or choose any of his ways ;

3:31a–b

Do not envy…or choose any of his ways: In this context, it is implied that the violent person commits crime in order to gain wealth. The son is admonished to not envy or be jealous of such a person. He should not desire to possess for himself the wealth or social status of a rich criminal.

The parallel command or choose any of his ways indicates that he should not decide to follow any of the rich criminal’s wicked behavior.

Some other ways to translate these parallel commands are:

Don’t be jealous of violent people or decide to act as they do. (Good News Translation)
-or-
Don’t be jealous of those who use violence, and don’t choose to be like them. (New Century Version)

3:31a

a violent man: The word that the Berean Standard Bible and most versions translate as violent often refers to someone who uses physical brutality (Contemporary English Version has “cruel”). But it may also refer to anyone who breaks the law. For example, both the Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures and New American Bible have:

lawless man (New American Bible, Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures)

© 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.