Practical Warnings

¹My son, if you have become a guarantor for your neighbor,

Have struck your hands in pledge for a stranger,

²If you have been snared with the words of your mouth,

Have been caught with the words of your mouth,

³Do this then, my son, and deliver yourself;

Since you have come into the hand of your neighbor,

Go, humble yourself, and badger your neighbor.

⁴Give no sleep to your eyes,

Nor slumber to your eyelids;

⁵Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hunter’s hand

And like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

⁶¶Go to the ant, O sluggard,

Observe her ways and be wise,

⁷Which, having no chief,

Officer or ruler,

⁸Prepares her food in the summer

And gathers her provision in the harvest.

⁹How long will you lie down, O sluggard?

When will you arise from your sleep?

¹⁰“A little sleep, a little slumber,

A little folding of the hands to rest”—

¹¹Your poverty will come in like a vagabond[#6:11 Lit one who walks]

And your want like an armed man.

¹²¶A vile person, a wicked man,

Is the one who walks with a perverse mouth,

¹³Who winks with his eyes, who signals with his feet,[#6:13 Lit scrapes]

Who points with his fingers;

¹⁴Who with perversity in his heart continually devises evil,

Who spreads contentions.

¹⁵Therefore his disaster will come suddenly;

Instantly he will be broken and there will be no healing.

¹⁶¶There are six things which Yahweh hates,

Even seven which are an abomination to Him:

¹⁷Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

And hands that shed innocent blood,

¹⁸A heart that devises wicked thoughts,

Feet that hasten to run to evil,

¹⁹A false witness who breathes out lies,

And one who spreads strife among brothers.

Warning Against Adultery

²⁰¶My son, observe the commandment of your father

And do not abandon the law of your mother;

²¹Bind them continually on your heart;

Tie them around your neck.

²²When you walk about, they will lead you;[#6:22 Lit she]

When you sleep, they will keep watch over you;

And when you awake, they will speak to you.

²³For the commandment is a lamp and the law is light;[#6:23 Or instruction]

And reproofs for discipline are the way of life

²⁴To keep you from the evil woman,

From the smooth tongue of the foreign woman.

²⁵Do not desire her beauty in your heart,

Nor let her capture you with her eyelids.

²⁶For on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread,[#6:26 Or a woman who is a harlot]

And an adulteress hunts for the precious life.

²⁷Can a man take fire in his bosom[#6:27 Lit snatch up]

And his clothes not be burned?

²⁸Or can a man walk on hot coals

And his feet not be scorched?

²⁹So is the one who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;

Whoever touches her will not go unpunished.

³⁰Men do not despise a thief if he steals[#6:30 Or Do not men...? ; lit They do not]

To fill himself when he is hungry;

³¹But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold;

He must give all the substance of his house.

³²The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking a heart of wisdom ;

He who would destroy his soul does it.

³³Wounds and disgrace he will find,

And his reproach will not be blotted out.

³⁴For jealousy enrages a man,[#6:34 Lit is the rage of]

And he will not spare in the day of vengeance.

³⁵He will not accept any ransom,[#6:35 Lit lift up the face of]

He will not be willing though you give many bribes.