Proverbs 6:1-31

¹My son, if thou hast promised for thy friend, thou hast fastened thine hand at a stranger.

²Thou art bound by the words of thy mouth; and thou art taken with thine own words.

³Therefore, my son, do thou that that I say, and deliver thyself; for thou hast fallen into the hand of thy neighbour. Run thou about, haste thou, raise thy friend;

⁴give thou not sleep to thine eyes, neither thine eyelids nap.

⁵Be thou ravished, as a doe from the hand; and as a bird from the ambushings of the fowler.

⁶O! thou slow man, go to the ant; and behold thou his ways, and learn thou wisdom.

⁷Which when he hath no duke, neither commander, nor prince;

⁸maketh ready in summer meat to himself, and gathereth together in harvest that, that he shall eat.

⁹How long shalt thou, slow man, sleep? when shalt thou rise from thy sleep?

¹⁰A little thou shalt sleep, a little thou shalt nap; a little thou shalt join together thine hands that thou sleep.

¹¹And then neediness, as a way-goer, shall come to thee; and poverty, as an armed man. Forsooth if thou art not slow, thy ripe corn shall come as a well; and neediness shall flee far from thee.

¹²A man apostate, is a man unprofit-able, he goeth with a wayward mouth;

¹³he beckoneth with eyes, he trampeth with the foot, he speaketh with the finger,

¹⁴by shrewd heart he imagineth evil, and in all time he soweth dissensions.

¹⁵His perdition shall come to him anon, and he shall be broken suddenly; and he shall no more have medicine.

¹⁶Six things there be, which the Lord hateth; and his soul curseth the seventh thing.

¹⁷High eyes, a tongue liar, that is, accustomable to deadly leasing, hands shedding out innocent blood,

¹⁸an heart imagining full wicked thoughts, feet swift to run into evil,

¹⁹a man bringing forth leasing, a false witness; and him that soweth discord among brethren.

²⁰My son, keep the commandments of thy father; and forsake thou not the law of thy mother.

²¹Bind thou those continually in thine heart; and encompass to thy throat.

²²When thou goest, go they with thee; when thou sleepest, keep they thee; and thou waking, speak with them.

²³For the commandment of God is a lantern, and the law is light, and the blaming of teaching is the way of life;

²⁴that they keep thee from an evil woman, and from a flattering tongue of a strange woman.

²⁵Thine heart covet not the fairness of her; neither be thou taken by the beckonings of her.

²⁶For the price of a whore is scarcely a gobbet of bread; but such a woman taketh the precious soul of a man.

²⁷Whether a man may hide fire in his bosom, that his clothes burn not;

²⁸either go on coals, and his feet be not burnt?

²⁹So he that entereth to the wife of his neighbour; shall not be clean, when he hath touched her.

³⁰It is no great sin, when a man stealeth; for he stealeth to fill an hungry soul.

³¹And he taken shall yield the seventhfold; and he shall give all the chattel or substance of his house, and shall deliver himself.