-
6:1 My child, if you have given your pledge to your neighbor, if you have bound yourself to another, 6:2 you are snared by the utterance of your lips, caught by the words of your mouth. 6:3 So do this, my child, and save yourself, for you have come into your neighbor's power: go, hurry, and plead with your neighbor. 6:4 Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber; 6:5 save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler. 6:6 Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise. 6:7 Without having any chief or officer or ruler, 6:8 it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest. 6:9 How long will you lie there, O lazybones? When will you rise from your sleep? 6:10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 6:11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior. 6:12 A scoundrel and a villain goes around with crooked speech, 6:13 winking the eyes, shuffling the feet, pointing the fingers, 6:14 with perverted mind devising evil, continually sowing discord; 6:15 on such a one calamity will descend suddenly; in a moment, damage beyond repair. 6:16 There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: 6:17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 6:18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, 6:19 a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family. 6:20 My child, keep your father's commandment, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. 6:21 Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck. 6:22 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. 6:23 For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, 6:24 to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. 6:25 Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; 6:26 for a prostitute's fee is only a loaf of bread, but the wife of another stalks a man's very life. 6:27 Can fire be carried in the bosom without burning one's clothes? 6:28 Or can one walk on hot coals without scorching the feet? 6:29 So is he who sleeps with his neighbor's wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished. 6:30 Thieves are not despised who steal only to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry. 6:31 Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold; they will forfeit all the goods of their house. 6:32 But he who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself. 6:33 He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. 6:34 For jealousy arouses a husband's fury, and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge. 6:35 He will accept no compensation, and refuses a bribe no matter how great.