Proverbs 20:16
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger; And hold him in pledge that is surety for foreigners.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Take a man's clothing if he makes himself responsible for a strange man, and get an undertaking from him who gives his word for strange men.
Webster's Revision
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
World English Bible
Take the garment of one who puts up collateral for a stranger; and hold him in pledge for a wayward woman.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger; and hold him in pledge that is surety for strangers.
Clarke's Proverbs 20:16 Bible Commentary
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger - I suppose the meaning to be, If a stranger or unknown person become surety in a case, greater caution should be used, and such security taken from this stranger as would prevent him from running away from his engagements.
Barnes's Proverbs 20:16 Bible Commentary
The warning against suretiship and lust are here repeated and combined (compare Proverbs 27:13). The judge tells the creditor to seize the goods of the surety who has been weak enough to pledge himself for those who are alien to him, instead of those of the actual debtor. The reading of the the King James Version recalls in the second clause the history of Tamar Genesis 38:17-18. The Hebrew text, however, gives "strangers" in the masculine plural, and is probably right, the feminine being the reading of the margin, probably adopted from Proverbs 27:13.
Wesley's Proverbs 20:16 Bible Commentary
20:16 Take - As a pledge, without which he ought not to be trusted.Of him - That is surety.
