Proverbs 6

¹ My son, if you have become surety for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger;

² if you are snared in the utterance of your lips, caught in the words of your mouth;

³ then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into your neighbor's power: go, hasten, and importune your neighbor.

⁴ Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber;

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

⁶ Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.

⁷ Without having any chief, officer or ruler,

⁸ she prepares her food in summer, and gathers her sustenance in harvest.

⁹ How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?

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

¹¹ and poverty will come upon you like a vagabond, and want like an armed man.

¹² A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech,

¹³ winks with his eyes, scrapes with his feet, points with his finger,

¹⁴ with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord;

¹⁵ therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.

¹⁶ There are six things which the LORD hates, seven which are an abomination to him:

¹⁷ haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

¹⁸ a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil,

¹⁹ a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers.

²⁰ My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.

²¹ Bind them upon your heart always; tie them about your neck.

²² When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.

²³ For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,

²⁴ to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adventuress.

²⁵ Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;

²⁶ for a harlot may be hired for a loaf of bread, but an adulteress stalks a man's very life.

²⁷ Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

²⁸ Or can one walk upon hot coals and his feet not be scorched?

²⁹ So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.

³⁰ Do not men despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry?

³¹ And if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold; he will give all the goods of his house.

³² He who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself.

³³ Wounds and dishonor will he get, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

³⁴ For jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge.

³⁵ He will accept no compensation, nor be appeased though you multiply gifts.