Proverbs

21 A king’s heart is in Jehovah’s hands a set of irrigation-streams

which he turns upon what he chooses.

2* A man feels as if all his course were correct,

but Jehovah gauges hearts.

3 Doing the right and lawful thing

is for Jehovah preferable to a sacrifice.

4* Loftiness in the eyes and extensiveness in the thought,

wicked men’s undertakings are sin.

5 An industrious man’s plans work out all to abundance;

but anybody who is in a hurry, all to shortage.

6* One who accumulates property by false pretenses

is chasing after a wisp of vapor into snares of death.

7 Wrong-doers’ violence drags them along

because they have not been willing to do the lawful thing.

8* One who is tortuous in his course is a foul man;

but a clean man’s doings are straightforward.

9* Better to live on the corner of a roof

than a home shared with a quarrelsome woman.

10 A wrong-doer’s appetite craves evil;

he has no kindness for his fellowman.

11 By punishment of a cynic a simpleton gets wisdom,

but when a wise man is given good advice he sees the point.

12* A right-doer does his best by a wrong-doer’s house;

a wrecker of wrong-doers is bound to come to grief.

13 He who stops his ears against a poor man’s cry,

he too shall call out and not be answered.

14* A gift in private parries anger,

and a present slipped into the pocket heat of temper.

15 The doing of justice is gladness to an honest man,

but dismay to villains.

16 A man who wanders off the road of reason

will come to his rest in the throng of ghosts.

17 One who loves merrymaking is a man of privations;

one does not get rich who loves wine and oil.

18** A wrong-doer pays a penalty for a right-doer,

and a faithless man is a substitute for upright men.

19 Better life in a wilderness

than a quarrelsome and irritating wife.

21* One who pursues right-dealing and friendliness

will find life and honor.

22 A wise man scales a city of champions

and brings down the strength it put its confidence in.

23 He who guards his mouth and his tongue

is guarding his life from distress.

24 A haughty, presumptuous man, whose name is cynic,

acts with the recklessness of presumption.

25 An idler’s craving is the death of him

because his hands refuse to do anything.

26 All day craving goes on craving,

but a right-doer gives and does not hold back.

27 Wrong-doers’ sacrifice is an abomination,

all the more when one brings it designedly.

28* A lying witness is lost,

but a man who has heard speaks on and on.

29 A man doing wrong shows a stiff face;

but an upright man, he sets his courses in order.

30 There is no wisdom or insight

or policy to confront Jehovah.

31 One gets ponies ready for a day of battle,

but victory is Jehovah’s affair.