Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.
Here, 1. It is supposed that a man may walk in his uprightness and yet be poor in this world, which is a temptation to dishonesty, and yet may resist the temptation and continue to walk in his uprightness - also that a man may be perverse in his ways, injurious to God and man, and yet be rich, and prosper in the world, for...
Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness,.... See Gill on Pro 19:1; than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich; or, "in his two ways" (c): that halts between two ways, or makes use of both; sometimes turns to the one, to the right hand, and sometimes to the other, to the left hand; or that pretends to the...
(Compare Pro 10:6). Riches cannot compensate for sin, nor the want of them affect integrity.