Proverbs 26:23

"Fervent lips and a wicked heart Are like an earthen vessel overlaid with silver dross.

He that hateth dissembleth with his lips; But he layeth up deceit within him:

When he speaketh fair, believe him not; For there are seven abominations in his heart.

Though his hatred cover itself with guile, His wickedness shall be openly showed before the assembly.

Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein; And he that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon him.

A lying tongue hateth them whom it hath wounded; And a flattering mouth worketh ruin."

"Fervent lips" (Proverbs 26:23). "Lips glorying with affection, uttering warm words of love."[11] Walls referred to Proverbs 26:17-28 here as, "A book of scoundrels";[12] and that is certainly what it is. Proverbs 26:24 speaks of the man who hates another, but flatters him with a view to finding some way to destroy him.

"Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein" (Proverbs 26:27). Haman who erected a gallows upon which he intended to hang Mordecai is the classical example of how true this proverb is. Haman himself was hanged on that gallows.

"He that rolleth a stone ... etc." (Proverbs 26:27). In ancient warfare heavy stones were rolled to the top of some eminence, where they could be released to cause damage or destruction to some attacker. Such a trap, set for others could also, under some change of circumstance, destroy the one that set it.

Proverbs 26:28 says that, "The lying tongue hates its victim"; and this pinpoints a strange perversity of human nature. One should avoid loaning money to friends; because, true to what is indicated here, the friend, if unable or unwilling to pay back the loan, invariably becomes an enemy of the man that befriended him. From this is a proverb that came not from Solomon. Loan money to a friend; and you will lose both the money and the friend. Of course, it doesn't always turn out that way.