Warnings against Foolishness
My son, if you have gone surety for your neighbor, if you have struck your palms for a stranger,
you are snared by the sayings of your mouth; you are captured by the sayings of your mouth.
Do this then, my son, and be delivered, for you have come into your neighbor’s palm: go, humble yourself, and press your neighbor.
Do not give sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eyelids.
Be delivered like a gazelle from the hand, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Go to the ant, sluggard; see her ways and be wise.
She has no chief, officer, or ruler,
yet she prepares her bread in the summer; she gathers her food in the harvest.
How long, sluggard, will you lie down? When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to lie down —
and your poverty will come like a walker, and your want like a man with a shield.
A worthless human, a man of iniquity, walks with crookedness of mouth,
winking with his eyes, scraping with his feet, pointing with his fingers,
perversities in his heart, plotting evil at every time; he sends out discord.
Therefore his calamity will come suddenly; in an instant he will be broken, and there is no healing.
Six are these that the LORD hates, and seven are abominations of his soul:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood;
a heart that plots thoughts of iniquity, feet that hurry to run to evil;
a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sends out discord among brothers.
Warnings against Adultery
Keep, my son, the commandment of your father, and do not forsake the instruction of your mother.
Bind them on your heart continually; tie them on your neck.
When you walk about, she will lead you; when you lie down, she will watch over you; and when you awake, she will talk with you.
For the commandment is a lamp and the instruction a light, and the rebukes of discipline are the way of life,
to keep you from the evil woman, from the smoothness of the tongue of a foreign woman.
Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her take you with her eyelids.
For on account of a prostitute a man is reduced to a loaf of bread, and a man’s wife hunts a precious life.
Can a man scoop fire into his bosom and his garments not be burned?
Or can a man walk on coals and his feet not be scorched?
So is the one who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.
They do not despise a thief when he steals to fill his soul when he is hungry,
but if he is found, he will repay sevenfold; he will give all the wealth of his house.
The one who commits adultery with a woman lacks heart; he who does it destroys his own soul.
He will find wound and dishonor, and his reproach will not be wiped out.
For jealousy is the rage of a man, and he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
He will not lift up the face of any ransom, and he will not consent though you multiply the bribe.