Proverbs 6:1-12

¹My son, if you have become collateral for your neighbour, if you have struck your hands in pledge for a stranger,

²you are trapped by the words of your mouth; you are ensnared with the words of your mouth.

³Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself, since you have come into the hand of your neighbour. Go, humble yourself. Press your plea with your neighbour.

⁴Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.

⁵Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.

⁶Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise;

⁷which having no chief, overseer, or ruler,

⁸provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.

⁹How long will you sleep, sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep?

¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep—

¹¹so your poverty will come as a robber, and your scarcity as an armed man.

¹²A worthless person, a man of iniquity, is he who walks with a perverse mouth,