²⁷ Put your outdoor work in order
    and get your fields ready;
    after that, build your house.

¹¹ Those who work their land will have abundant food,
    but those who chase fantasies have no sense.

⁴ Lazy hands make for poverty,
    but diligent hands bring wealth.

²⁴ Diligent hands will rule,
    but laziness ends in forced labour.

²³ All hard work brings a profit,
    but mere talk leads only to poverty.

¹³ A sluggard says, ‘There’s a lion in the road,
    a fierce lion roaming the streets!’
¹⁴ As a door turns on its hinges,
    so a sluggard turns on his bed.
¹⁵ A sluggard buries his hand in the dish;
    he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth.
¹⁶ A sluggard is wiser in his own eyes
    than seven people who answer discreetly.

³⁰ I went past the field of a sluggard,
    past the vineyard of someone who has no sense;
³¹ thorns had come up everywhere,
    the ground was covered with weeds,
    and the stone wall was in ruins.
³² I applied my heart to what I observed
    and learned a lesson from what I saw:
³³ a little sleep, a little slumber,
    a little folding of the hands to rest –
³⁴ and poverty will come on you like a thief
    and scarcity like an armed man.