Proverbs 6:4-35

⁴Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber with your eyelids;

⁵that you may deliver yourself as a doe out of the toils, and as a bird out of a snare.

⁶Go to the ant, O sluggard; and see, and emulate his ways, and become wiser than he.

⁷For whereas he has no husbandry, nor any one to compel him, and is under no master,

⁸he prepares food for himself in the summer, and lays by abundant store in harvest. Or go to the bee, and learn how diligent she is, and how earnestly she is engaged in her work; whose labors kings and private men use for health, and she is desired and respected by all: though weak in body, she is advanced by honouring wisdom.

⁹How long will you lie, O sluggard? and when will you awake out of sleep?

¹⁰You sleep a little, and you rest a little, and you slumber a short time, and you fold your arms over your breast a little.

¹¹Then poverty comes upon you as an evil traveller, and lack as a swift courier: but if you be diligent, your harvest shall arrive as a fountain, and poverty shall flee away as a bad courier.

¹²A foolish man and a transgressor goes in ways that are not good.

¹³And the same winks with the eye, and makes a sign with his foot, and teaches with the beckonings of his fingers.

¹⁴His perverse heart devises evils: at all times such a one causes troubles to a city.

¹⁵Therefore his destruction shall come suddenly; overthrow and irretrievable ruin.

¹⁶For he rejoices in all things which God hates, and he is ruined by reason of impurity of soul.

¹⁷The eye of the haughty, a tongue unjust, hands shedding the blood of the just;

¹⁸and a heart devising evil thoughts, and feet hastening to do evil, —are hateful to God.

¹⁹An unjust witness kindles falsehoods, and brings on quarrels between brethren.

²⁰My son, keep the laws of your father, and reject not the ordinances of your mother:

²¹but bind them upon your soul continually, and hang them as a chain about your neck.

²²Whenever you walk, lead this along and let it be with you; that it may talk with you when you wake.

²³For the commandment of the law is a lamp and a light; a way of life; reproof also and correction:

²⁴to keep you continually from a married woman, and from the calumny of a strange tongue.

²⁵Let not the desire of beauty overcome you, neither be you caught by your eyes, neither be captivated with her eyelids.

²⁶For the value of a harlot is as much as of one loaf; and a woman hunts for the precious souls of men.

²⁷Shall any one bind fire in his bosom, and not burn his garments?

²⁸or will any one walk on coals of fire, and not burn his feet?

²⁹So is he that goes in to a married woman; he shall not be held guiltless, neither any one that touches her.

³⁰It is not to be wondered at if one should be taken stealing, for he steals that when hungry he may satisfy his soul:

³¹but if he should be taken, he shall repay sevenfold, and shall deliver himself by giving all his goods.

³²But the adulterer through lack of sense procures destruction to his soul.

³³He endures both pain and disgrace, and his reproach shall never be wiped off.

³⁴For the soul of her husband is full of jealousy: he will not spare in the day of vengeance.

³⁵He will not forego his enmity for any ransom: neither will he be reconciled for many gifts.