• 1 My son, if you be surety for your friend, if you have stricken your hand with a stranger,
  • 2 You are snared with the words of your mouth, you are taken with the words of your mouth.
  • 3 Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself, when you are come into the hand of your friend; go, humble yourself, and make sure your friend.
  • 4 Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.
  • 5 Deliver yourself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
  • 6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
  • 7 Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
  • 8 Provides her meat in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.
  • 9 How long will you sleep, O sluggard? when will you arise out of your sleep?
  • 10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:
  • 11 So shall your poverty come as one that travels, and your want as an armed man.
  • 12 A naughty person, a wicked man, walks with a fraudulent mouth.
  • 13 He winks with his eyes, he speaks with his feet, he teaches with his fingers;
  • 14 Frowardness is in his heart, he devises mischief continually; he sows discord.
  • 15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.
  • 16 These six things does the LORD hate: yes, seven are an abomination to him:
  • 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
  • 18 An heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
  • 19 A false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brothers.
  • 20 My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not the law of your mother:
  • 21 Bind them continually on your heart, and tie them about your neck.
  • 22 When you go, it shall lead you; when you sleep, it shall keep you; and when you wake, it shall talk with you.
  • 23 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
  • 24 To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
  • 25 Lust not after her beauty in your heart; neither let her take you with her eyelids.
  • 26 For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
  • 27 Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?
  • 28 Can one go on hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
  • 29 So he that goes in to his neighbor's wife; whoever touches her shall not be innocent.
  • 30 Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;
  • 31 But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.
  • 32 But whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding: he that does it destroys his own soul.
  • 33 A wound and dishonor shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.
  • 34 For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
  • 35 He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though you give many gifts.