Proverbs
6 My son, if you have gone security to another,
have struck hands with a stranger,
2 You are trapped in the word of your lips,
caught in the say of your mouth.
3 Do this, son, do, and deliver yourself,
because you have got into the other man’s hand:
go cringe to the other man and bluster at him.
4 Give your eyes no sleep,
your eyelashes no slumber;
5 Break loose like a gazelle struggling out of toils
or a bird out of a fowler’s hand.
6 Go to an ant, idler,
see its courses and become wise:
7 It, that has no chieftain,
marshal, nor ruler,
8 Lays in its food in summer,
gets its provisions packed away in harvesttime.
9 How long will you lie abed, idler?
when will you get up from your sleep?
10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding your arms to lie abed—
11 And your poverty shall come like a prowler
and your want like a man under arms.
13 Winks with his eyes, shuffles with his feet,
makes signs with his fingers,
14 Has mischief in his heart, is working up harm every minute, sets quarrels going,—
15 Therefore his calamity will come suddenly,
he will be incurably broken all at once.
16 Six things there are that Jehovah hates,
seven that are detestable to his soul:
17 Lofty eyes, a false tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that frames plans of villainy,
feet that run fast to what is bad,
19 A lie-blowing false witness,
and one who sets quarrels going between brothers.
20 Keep your father’s command, my son,
and never abandon your mother’s teachings;
21 Tie them over your heart always,
string them round your throat.
22 When you walk it will guide you,
when you lie down it will watch over you
and you will wake up with it minding you.
23 For a command is a lamp and a teaching is light,
and the admonition of discipline is a road to life,
24 To guard you from a ruinous woman,
from the slipperiness of a foreign dame’s tongue.
25 Do not take inward pleasure in her beauty;
let her not catch you with her eyelashes,
26 Because on account of an unchaste woman one comes down to a loaf of bread,
and a man’s wife hunts dear lives.
28 Or will a man walk on live coals
and his feet not be burned?
29 So it is with him who goes in to another’s wife:
nobody who touches her will go free.
31 But one who is found pays back sevenfold,
gives all the goods in his house.
32 One who commits adultery with a wife lacks brains;
it is a self-destroyer that does it.
33 He will get blows and dishonor,
and his ignominy will be uneffaceable.
34 For jealousy is a man’s fury,
and he will be unsparing on the day of revenge;
35 He will not take any composition-money into consideration, will not consent though you offer a high price.