Proverbs 14:20
Poverty often isolates a person, while wealth attracts many companions.
20 The poor person is shunned even by his own neighbor, but the rich person has many friends.
Poverty often isolates a person, while wealth attracts many companions.
To observe the social tendency for people to distance themselves from the poor while showing favor toward the wealthy.
Proverbs 14 is a collection of short sayings that contrast wise and foolish living in everyday settings—speech, community life, labor, and moral choices. Verse 20 sits among proverbs that reveal how righteousness and wickedness shape social realities, including status, outcomes, and the way others respond. The verse is not framed as a command but as an observation that names how communities often behave. Its placement near 14:21 (which speaks explicitly about sinning by despising a neighbor and blessing in being kind to the needy) helps prevent readers from treating the observation as approval. The proverb functions as a diagnostic: it tells the truth about partiality so that wisdom can choose compassion and integrity instead of self-interest.
The Fear of the LORD, the Way That Seems Right, and Wisdom for Household, Speech, and Community
Wisdom fears the LORD, discerns the way of life, builds households, speaks truth, shows kindness to the needy, and rejects the self-deceiving path that seems right but ends in death.