Proverbs 24:5-34

⁵A wise man is strong, and a learned man is stalworthy and mighty.

⁶For why battle is begun with ordinance; and health shall be, where many counsels be.

⁷Wisdom is high to a fool; in the gate he shall not open his mouth.

⁸He that thinketh to do evils, shall be called a fool.

⁹The thought of a fool is sin; and a backbiter is abomination of men.

¹⁰If thou hast slid, despairest in the day of anguish, thy strength shall be made less.

¹¹Deliver thou them, that be led to death; and cease thou not to deliver them, that be drawn to death.

¹²If thou sayest, Strengths or Strong-holds suffice not; he that is the beholder of the heart, understandeth, and nothing deceiveth the keeper of thy soul, and he shall yield to a man after his works.

¹³My son, eat thou honey, for it is good; and the honeycomb for it is full sweet to thy throat.

¹⁴So and the teaching of wisdom is good to thy soul; and when thou hast found it, thou shalt have hope in the last things, and thine hope shall not perish.

¹⁵Ambush thou not, and seek not wickedness in the house of a just or rightwise man, neither waste thou, his resting place.

¹⁶For a just or rightwise man shall fall seven times in the day, and shall rise again; but wicked men shall fall into evil.

¹⁷When thine enemy falleth, have thou not joy; and thine heart have not full out joying in his falling;

¹⁸lest peradventure the Lord see, and it displease him, and he take away his ire or his wrath from him.

¹⁹Strive thou not with the worst men, neither pursue or follow thou wicked men.

²⁰For why evil men have not hope of things to come, and the lantern of wicked men shall be quenched.

²¹My son, dread thou God, and the king; and be thou not meddled or mingled with backbiters.

²²For their perdition shall rise together suddenly, and who knoweth the fall of ever either?

²³Also these things that pursue be to wise men. It is not good to know a person in doom.

²⁴Peoples shall curse them that say to a wicked man, Thou art just or rightwise; and lineages shall hold them abominable.

²⁵They that reprove justly sinners, shall be praised; and blessing shall come up on them.

²⁶He that answereth with rightful or right words, shall kiss lips.

²⁷Make ready thy work withoutforth, and work thy field diligently, that thou build thine house afterward.

²⁸Be thou not a witness without reasonable cause against thy neighbour; neither flatter thou any man with thy lips.

²⁹Say thou not, As he did to me, so I shall do to him, and I shall yield to each man after his work.

³⁰I passed by the field of a slow man, and by the vinery or the vineyard of a fond or foolish man;

³¹and lo! nettles had filled all, thorns had covered the higher part thereof, and the wall of stones without mortar was destroyed.

³²And when I had seen this thing, I setted or put in mine heart, and by ensample, I learned teaching.

³³How long sleepest thou, slow man? when shalt thou rise from sleep? Soothly thou shalt sleep a little, thou shalt nap a little, thou shalt join together the hands a little, to take rest;

³⁴and then thy neediness as a courier shall come to thee, and thy beggary as an armed man.