This next verse is a very hard one.
"[The judge tells the creditor] Take his garment who is security for a stranger, and hold him in pledge when he is security for foreigners." Proverbs 20:16, Amplified
Verses fourteen through seventeen have to do with the buying and selling of items. Everything has its price. But what happens if we place ourselves on the line for someone else? To be security for someone is the modern day version of cosigning for something. And when the Bible speaks of the "stranger" it is referring to a non-Jew.
Remember that the Proverbs were written by a Jew for the Jew. They are now applicable to us because we are grafted in, we have been adopted. To make this applicable for us today we must place it into a spiritual context. Jesus payed the ultimate price for us, His very life. How then do we feel we have the option to place ourselves as security for someone or something else? To give ourselves over to drugs, alcohol or even pornography is to sell ourselves to those things. How can something that has been purchased by someone be sold to another? Today it is referred to as fencing. When we turn our backs on the Lord, we have basically stolen ourselves away from him to become subject to another.
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