| 1 Blessed is anyone who has not sinned in speech and who needs feel no remorse for sins. |
| 2 Blessed is anyone whose conscience brings no reproach and who has never given up hope. |
| 3 Wealth is not the right thing for the niggardly, and what use are possessions to the covetous? |
| 4 Whoever hoards by stinting himself is hoarding for others, and others wil live sumptuously on hisriches. |
| 5 If someone is mean to himself, whom does he benefit? he does not even enjoy what is his own. |
| 6 No one is meaner than the person who is mean to himself, this is how his wickedness repays him. |
| 7 If he does any good, he does it unintentional y, and in the end he himself reveals his wickedness. |
| 8 Wicked the person who has an envious eye, averting his face, and careless of others' lives. |
| 9 The eye of the grasping is not content with what he has, greed shrivels up the soul. |
| 10 The miser is grudging of bread, there is famine at his table. |
| 11 My child, treat yourself as wel as you can afford, and bring worthy offerings to the Lord. |
| 12 Remember that death wil not delay, and that you have never seen Sheol's contract. |
| 13 Be kind to your friend before you die, treat him as generously as you can afford. |
| 14 Do not refuse yourself the good things of today, do not let your share of what is lawfully desired passyou by. |
| 15 Wil you not have to leave your fortune to another, and the fruit of your labour to be divided by lot? |
| 16 Give and receive, enjoy yourself -- there are no pleasures to be found in Sheol. |
| 17 Like clothes, every body wil wear out, the age -- old law is, 'Everyone must die.' |
| 18 Like foliage growing on a bushy tree, some leaves fal ing, others growing, so are the generations offlesh and blood: one dies, another is born. |
| 19 Every achievement rots away and perishes, and with it goes its author. |
| 20 Blessed is anyone who meditates on wisdom, and reasons with intelligence, |
| 21 who studies her ways in his heart, and ponders her secrets. |
| 22 He pursues her like a hunter, and lies in wait by her path; |
| 23 he peeps in at her windows, and listens at her doors; |
| 24 he lodges close to her house, and fixes his peg in her wal s; |
| 25 he pitches his tent at her side, and lodges in an excel ent lodging; |
| 26 he sets his children in her shade, and camps beneath her branches; |
| 27 he is sheltered by her from the heat, and in her glory he makes his home. |