Warning against suretyship
1
My son! If you have been guarantor for your friend, || Have struck your hand for a stranger,
2
Have been snared with sayings of your mouth, || Have been captured with sayings of your mouth,
3
Do this now, my son, and be delivered, || For you have come into the hand of your friend. Go, trample on yourself, and strengthen your friend,
4
Do not give sleep to your eyes, || And slumber to your eyelids,
5
Be delivered as a roe from the hand, || And as a bird from the hand of a fowler.
Warning against laziness
6
Go to the ant, O slothful one, || See her ways and be wise;
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Which has no captain, overseer, and ruler,
8
She prepares her bread in summer, || She has gathered her food in harvest.
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Until when, O slothful one, do you lie? When do you arise from your sleep?
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A little sleep, a little slumber, || A little clasping of the hands to rest,
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And your poverty has come as a traveler, || And your want as an armed man.
Warning against falsehood
12
A man of worthlessness, a man of iniquity, || Walking [with] perverseness of mouth,
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Winking with his eyes, speaking with his feet, || Directing with his fingers,
14
Contrariness [is] in his heart, devising evil at all times, || He sends forth contentions.
15
Therefore his calamity comes suddenly, || He is broken instantly—and no healing.
Prevention of seven sins
16
These six has YHWH hated, || Indeed, seven [are] abominations to His soul:
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High eyes, || False tongues, || And hands shedding innocent blood,
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A heart devising thoughts of vanity, || Feet hastening to run to evil,
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A false witness [who] breathes out lies, || And one sending forth contentions between brothers.
Prevention against adultery
20
Keep, my son, the command of your father, || And do not leave the law of your mother.
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Bind them on your heart continually, || Tie them on your neck.
22
In your going up and down, it leads you, || In your lying down, it watches over you, || And you have awoken—it talks [with] you.
23
For the command [is] a lamp, || And the Law a light, || And a way of life [are] reproofs of instruction,
24
To preserve you from an evil woman, || From the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
25
Do not desire her beauty in your heart, || And do not let her take you with her eyelids.
26
For a harlot consumes to a cake of bread, || And an adulteress hunts the precious soul.
27
Does a man take fire into his bosom, || And are his garments not burned?
28
Does a man walk on the hot coals, || And are his feet not scorched?
29
So [is] he who has gone in to the wife of his neighbor, || None who touches her is innocent.
30
They do not despise the thief, || When he steals to fill his soul when he is hungry,
31
And being found he repays sevenfold, || He gives all the substance of his house.
32
He who commits adultery [with] a woman lacks heart, || He who does it is destroying his soul.
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He finds a stroke and shame, || And his reproach is not wiped away,
34
For jealousy [is] the fury of a man, || And he does not spare in a day of vengeance.
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He does not accept the appearance of any atonement, || Indeed, he does not consent, || Though you multiply bribes!
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