Proverbs 30:5-27

⁵For all the words of God are tried in the fire, and he defends those that reverence him.

⁶Add not to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be made a liar.

⁷Two things I ask of you; take not favour from me before I die.

⁸Remove far from me vanity and falsehood: and give me not wealth or poverty; but appoint me what is needful and sufficient:

⁹lest I be filled and become false, and say, Who sees me? or be poor and steal, and swear vainly by the name of God.

¹⁰Deliver not a servant into the hands of his master, lest he curse you, and you be utterly destroyed.

¹¹A wicked generation curse their father, and do not bless their mother.

¹²A wicked generation judge themselves to be just, but do not cleanse their way.

¹³A wicked generation have lofty eyes, and exalt themselves with their eyelids.

¹⁴A wicked generation have swords for teeth and jaw teeth as knives, so as to destroy and devour the lowly from the earth, and the poor of them from amongst men.

¹⁵The horse-leech had three dearly beloved daughters: and these three did not satisfy her; and the fourth was not contented so as to say, Enough.

¹⁶The grave, and the love of a woman, and the earth not filled with water; water also and fire will not say, It is enough.

¹⁷The eye that laughs to scorn a father, and dishonours the old age of a mother, let the ravens of the valleys pick it out, and let the young eagles devour it.

¹⁸Moreover there are three things impossible for me to comprehend, and the fourth I know not:

¹⁹the track of a flying eagle; and the ways of a serpent on a rock; and the paths of a ship passing through the sea; and the ways of a man in youth.

²⁰Such is the way of an adulterous woman, who having washed herself from what she has done, says she has done nothing amiss.

²¹By three thing the earth is troubled, and the fourth it can’t bear:

²²if a servant reign; or a fool be filled with food;

²³or if a maidservant should cast out her own mistress; and if a hateful woman should marry a good man.

²⁴And there are four very little things upon the earth, but these are wiser than the wise:

²⁵the ants which are weak, and yet prepare their food in summer;

²⁶the rabbits also are a feeble race, who make their houses in the rocks.

²⁷The locusts have no king, and yet march orderly at one command.