| 1 | Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight; |
| 2 | for I give you good precepts: do not forsake my teaching. |
| 3 | When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, |
| 4 | he taught me, and said to me, "Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live; |
| 5 | do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Get wisdom; get insight. |
| 6 | Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. |
| 7 | The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. |
| 8 | Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her. |
| 9 | She will place on your head a fair garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown." |
| 10 | Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many. |
| 11 | I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. |
| 12 | When you walk, your step will not be hampered; and if you run, you will not stumble. |
| 13 | Keep hold of instruction, do not let go; guard her, for she is your life. |
| 14 | Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of evil men. |
| 15 | Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on. |
| 16 | For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong; they are robbed of sleep unless they have made some one stumble. |
| 17 | For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. |
| 18 | But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. |
| 19 | The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble. |
| 20 | My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. |
| 21 | Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. |
| 22 | For they are life to him who finds them, and healing to all his flesh. |
| 23 | Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life. |
| 24 | Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. |
| 25 | Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. |
| 26 | Take heed to the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. |
| 27 | Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil. |
| 1 | My son, be attentive to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding; |
| 2 | that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. |
| 3 | For the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; |
| 4 | but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. |
| 5 | Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; |
| 6 | she does not take heed to the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it. |
| 7 | And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. |
| 8 | Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house; |
| 9 | lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless; |
| 10 | lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of an alien; |
| 11 | and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, |
| 12 | and you say, "How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! |
| 13 | I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. |
| 14 | I was at the point of utter ruin in the assembled congregation." |
| 15 | Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. |
| 16 | Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? |
| 17 | Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. |
| 18 | Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, |
| 19 | a lovely hind, a graceful doe. Let her affection fill you at all times with delight, be infatuated always with her love. |
| 20 | Why should you be infatuated, my son, with a loose woman and embrace the bosom of an adventuress? |
| 21 | For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he watches all his paths. |
| 22 | The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is caught in the toils of his sin. |
| 23 | He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is lost. |
| 1 | My son, if you have become surety for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger; |
| 2 | if you are snared in the utterance of your lips, caught in the words of your mouth; |
| 3 | then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into your neighbor's power: go, hasten, and importune your neighbor. |
| 4 | Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber; |
| 5 | save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler. |
| 6 | Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. |
| 7 | Without having any chief, officer or ruler, |
| 8 | she prepares her food in summer, and gathers her sustenance in harvest. |
| 9 | How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? |
| 10 | A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, |
| 11 | and poverty will come upon you like a vagabond, and want like an armed man. |
| 12 | A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, |
| 13 | winks with his eyes, scrapes with his feet, points with his finger, |
| 14 | with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; |
| 15 | therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing. |
| 16 | There are six things which the LORD hates, seven which are an abomination to him: |
| 17 | haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, |
| 18 | a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, |
| 19 | a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers. |
| 20 | My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching. |
| 21 | Bind them upon your heart always; tie them about your neck. |
| 22 | When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you. |
| 23 | For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, |
| 24 | to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adventuress. |
| 25 | Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; |
| 26 | for a harlot may be hired for a loaf of bread, but an adulteress stalks a man's very life. |
| 27 | Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? |
| 28 | Or can one walk upon hot coals and his feet not be scorched? |
| 29 | So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; none who touches her will go unpunished. |
| 30 | Do not men despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry? |
| 31 | And if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold; he will give all the goods of his house. |
| 32 | He who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself. |
| 33 | Wounds and dishonor will he get, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. |
| 34 | For jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge. |
| 35 | He will accept no compensation, nor be appeased though you multiply gifts. |
