Proverbs 31 Without the Guilt

A free 14-day scripture writing plan for women. One verse a day, copied slowly by hand.

Somebody read you Proverbs 31 once, and you came away feeling behind. This is fourteen days of writing that chapter out by hand, one verse a day, with the guilt taken off it.

Here is the one thing that changes everything, and you can check it yourself in any Bible. Proverbs 31 is a poem. Verse 1 says these are the words of King Lemuel, and that his mother taught them to him. Verses 1 through 9 preserve that teaching: a mother telling her son what to do with power. Verses 10 through 31 then close the chapter with an alphabet poem, twenty-two verses, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in order, praising a woman of noble character.

The acrostic form tells you this is carefully crafted praise, not twenty-two orders to her. You have been handed it as a test. It was written as an honor.

So write it out. One verse a day, fourteen days. It takes about five minutes.

How to use it

• Write the verse by hand. Not typed. Handwriting makes you touch every word.
• One verse a day, fourteen days. Pick a start date and fill in the dates below so you know where you are.
• Read the one line under each verse after you write it, not before. Write first.
• If you miss a day, nothing breaks. Pick up where you left off. You have enough things to be behind on.

Every verse below is quoted word for word from the Berean Standard Bible. You may have seen some of these lines worded differently on a mug or a print, because different English Bibles word them differently.

Day one, to show you where this plan starts:

“Open your mouth for those with no voice, for the cause of all the dispossessed.”

Proverbs 31:8 (BSB)

This is Proverbs 31. Almost nobody starts here.

Print the 14-day plan

What each day is for

Read the line for the day after you write the verse out, not before. Write first.

• Day 1, Proverbs 31:8. This is Proverbs 31. Almost nobody starts here. A mother is telling her son the king to speak up for people who have none.
• Day 2, Proverbs 31:9. The poor and the needy. Remember those two words. They come back on Day 9, in the poem itself.
• Day 3, Proverbs 31:10. A question. The text does not name who is asking it or who answers. Not an assignment handed to you.
• Day 4, Proverbs 31:11. His heart trusts her. In that world, this line handed a whole household over to a woman's judgment.
• Day 5, Proverbs 31:12. All the days of her life. The poem is looking at a whole life, not grading a week.
• Day 6, Proverbs 31:13. She chooses her materials. The first thing the poem praises is a woman's skill and her judgment.
• Day 7, Proverbs 31:15. The verse says nothing about what time she went to bed, and nothing about your alarm clock. Notice who she feeds. The household help got a portion too.
• Day 8, Proverbs 31:17. A woman's working body, in a praise poem, with no apology. Most of us were never told that was in there.
• Day 9, Proverbs 31:20. The same two groups from Day 2. The mother told the king to defend them. The poem shows a woman reaching for them.
• Day 10, Proverbs 31:21. The verse gives its own reason, with the word for. It does not say when, how, or by whom those clothes were made.
• Day 11, Proverbs 31:25. Read it again. It does not say she knows what is coming, or that the days will be good.
• Day 12, Proverbs 31:26. The third time this chapter says someone opens her mouth. The poem gives a woman a teaching voice.
• Day 13, Proverbs 31:30. This is the poem's own summary. Read it slowly and notice everything it leaves out: the wool, the field, the early morning, the husband, the children. It names one thing.
• Day 14, Proverbs 31:31. The last line of the chapter is an instruction, and it is not given to her. Give her. Let her works praise her. It is addressed to everyone listening, not to her.

When you finish

Look back at Day 14. The chapter does not end with a woman being measured. It ends with its hearers being told to give her her due and let her works praise her out loud in public.

So do what the verse says. Find one woman this week whose work nobody has mentioned, and say it out loud where people can hear.

Want the same sheet as a PDF? Download the printable version, three pages, free.

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