The desire of a man is his kindness: and a poor man is better than a liar.
This proverb cuts to something most people know but rarely say out loud: what human beings want more than anything else is to be loved without conditions — a love that simply does not quit. The Hebrew concept behind "unfailing love" is the word chesed, which appears throughout the Old Testament and means loyal, covenant-keeping devotion — the kind that stays even when it costs something. The second half of the verse may seem like a separate thought, but it connects: it is better to be honestly poor than to be a liar. Counterfeiting love — performing loyalty you don't actually feel, or pretending to care in order to get what you want — is a worse condition than honest poverty. Authenticity, even when it's costly, is worth more than an impressive facade.
God, You are the only source of love that truly never runs out. Teach me to stop performing and start being honest — with You and with the people I love. Help me trust that the real me, with all the rough edges, is still worth loving. Amen.
Strip away every ambition a person carries — the career goals, the curated image, the relentless busyness — and underneath most of it is the same quiet hunger: the hope to be truly known and still loved. Not maintained out of obligation. Not tolerated with a polite smile. Loved with a love that has read all the fine print and decided to stay anyway. The writer of Proverbs had no psychology degree, no algorithm, no focus group — and still landed on the most accurate diagnosis of the human condition: chesed, unfailing loyal love, is what we're all actually after. The sting of this verse is in what it demands from you. If unfailing love is what you truly desire, the path toward it runs through honesty, not performance. Lies build a relationship with a version of you that doesn't exist. Which means you can be deeply connected to someone and still be utterly alone — you can have everything that looks like love and still be starving for the real thing. Where in your life have you been trading honesty for approval? The love that actually fills the space — the kind that lands and stays — tends to come to the people who stopped performing and started being real.
What do you think the writer of Proverbs means by 'unfailing love' — what would that actually look like in a real, imperfect, everyday relationship?
Think of a time you felt genuinely known and loved. What made that feel different from the other relationships in your life?
The verse connects lying directly to the desire for love — why do you think deception and the hunger for love are so often tangled together in people's lives?
How does the pursuit of approval push you to be less honest with the people you're actually closest to?
Is there a relationship in your life where you've been performing instead of being real? What would one honest step look like this week — even a small one?
For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
Mark 12:44
Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.
Proverbs 19:1
And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.
Mark 12:41
For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.
2 Corinthians 8:12
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
1 Corinthians 13:4
And be ye kind one to another , tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Ephesians 4:32
Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich.
Proverbs 28:6
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
Proverbs 23:7
That which is desirable in a man is his loyalty and unfailing love, But it is better to be a poor man than a [wealthy] liar.
AMP
What is desired in a man is steadfast love, and a poor man is better than a liar.
ESV
What is desirable in a man is his kindness, And [it is] better to be a poor man than a liar.
NASB
What a man desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar.
NIV
What is desired in a man is kindness, And a poor man is better than a liar.
NKJV
Loyalty makes a person attractive. It is better to be poor than dishonest.
NLT
It's only human to want to make a buck, but it's better to be poor than a liar.
MSG