1My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have shaken hands with a stranger,
2then you have been ensnared by the words of your mouth, you have been captured by the words of your mouth.
3Do this now, my son, and be set free, for you have put yourself into the hand of your neighbor. Go forth. Humble yourself and pressure your neighbor.
4Do not give any sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eyelids.
5Be rescued like a gazelle from a hunter, and like a bird from the hand of a fowler.
6Go to the ant, O lazy one, watch its ways and become wise.
7Because it has no leader, overseer, or ruler,
8yet it prepares its bread in summer; it gathers its food in the harvest.
9How long, O lazy one, will you lie there? When will you rise up from your sleep?
10“Just a little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the arms to lie here,”
11and your poverty will come like a robber, and your needs like an armed man.
12A person of Belial, a man of wickedness, is the one walking with a crooked mouth,
13winking with his eyes, signaling with his foot, instructing with his fingers.
14With perversions in his heart he devises evil, at every moment he sows strife.
15Therefore, his calamity will come suddenly, in an instant he will be broken and there will be no remedy.
16There are six things that Yahweh hates, indeed, seven things are abominations to his soul:
17prideful eyes, a lying tongue, and hands shedding innocent blood;
18a heart that devises wicked thoughts, feet that are swift to run to do evil,
19a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows strife among brothers.
20My son, keep your father’s commandments, and do not ignore the instruction of your mother.
21Bind them upon your heart always, tie them around your neck.
22As you walk here and there, she will lead you; when you lie down, she will watch over you, and when you wake up, she will speak with you.
23For the commandment is a lamp and the instruction is a light, and reproofs that correct are a road leading to life,
24to keep you from the evil woman, from the flattering tongue of the foreign woman.
25Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not allow her to capture you with her eyes.
26For on account of a prostitute a man is reduced to a piece of bread, and an adulteress hunts for a precious life.
27Can a man snatch up fire against his chest and his clothes not be burnt?
28Or can a man walk upon hot coals and his feet not get burned?
29So is the one who goes into his neighbor’s wife; all who touch her will not go unpunished.
30People do not despise a thief when he steals to feed himself when he is hungry.
31But when he is caught, he will repay seven times; he will repay with all the wealth of his house.
32The man committing adultery with a woman lacks sense; he who does this is destroying his own soul.
33He will find affliction and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be blotted out.
34For jealousy enrages a husband, and he will not spare him in the day of his vengeance.
35He will not be persuaded by any ransom, nor will he be satisfied when you make many bribes.
REV Bible
