Proverbs 6:1-28 ▼

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.

6 Go to the ant, O slothful one, || See her ways and be wise;

7 Which has no captain, overseer, and ruler,

8 She prepares her bread in summer, || She has gathered her food in harvest.

9 Until when, O slothful one, do you lie? When do you arise from your sleep?

10 A little sleep, a little slumber, || A little clasping of the hands to rest,

11 And your poverty has come as a traveler, || And your want as an armed man.

12 A man of worthlessness, a man of iniquity, || Walking [with] perverseness of mouth,

13 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.

16 These six has YHWH hated, || Indeed, seven [are] abominations to His soul:

17 High eyes, || False tongues, || And hands shedding innocent blood,

18 A heart devising thoughts of vanity, || Feet hastening to run to evil,

19 A false witness [who] breathes out lies, || And one sending forth contentions between brothers.

20 Keep, my son, the command of your father, || And do not leave the law of your mother.

21 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?