“Misfortune pursues sinners”: “Misfortune” translates a word commonly rendered “evil” or “trouble” (see 1.33). It is contrasted in line 2 by “prosperity” or “good fortune,” literally “good.” “Pursues”, meaning “follows after in order to capture,” personifies “Misfortune” as an animate being. “Sinners”, first used in 1.10, refers to people of bad moral character and contrasts with good people or “the righteous” in line 2. It is often necessary in translation to adjust the personification in this line by saying, for example, “Sinners have trouble” or “Bad people suffer because of their troubles.”

“But prosperity rewards the righteous”: Here “prosperity” acts by rewarding or giving something in recognition of good behavior to “the righteous”. In this sense “prosperity” parallels and contrasts with “Misfortune”. The word translated “prosperity” may be taken to mean “good fortune” or “happiness.” Some interpreters question the personification of good fortune handing out rewards and see the real subject as God. With this understanding, they take this line as “He rewards the righteous with good.” However, there is no other mention of God in this chapter and instances of the divine name being omitted as the subject of a clause are very rare in Proverbs. The Septuagint has modified the Hebrew to mean “overtakes,” that is, “but prosperity will overtake the pious” (Moffatt).

Some modern translations restructure this line to make people the subject. For example, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has “The just are rewarded with good,” and Contemporary English Version “but you will be rewarded if you live right.” See Good News Translation. Others retain the personification with the active form of the verb; for example, New English Bible “but good rewards the righteous,” and Revised English Bible “good fortune rewards the righteous.” New International Version uses a noun form of reward: “but prosperity is the reward of the righteous.” We may also say, for example, “but good people will have good things as their reward” or “but good gifts will come to good people.”

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 .