Proverbs 6:4-14

Living Bible

⁴ Don’t put it off. Do it now. Don’t rest until you do. ⁵ If you can get out of this trap you have saved yourself like a deer that escapes from a hunter or a bird from the net.

⁶ Take a lesson from the ants, you lazy fellow. Learn from their ways and be wise! ⁷ For though they have no king to make them work, ⁸ yet they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. ⁹ But you—all you do is sleep. When will you wake up? ¹⁰ “Let me sleep a little longer!” Sure, just a little more! ¹¹ And as you sleep, poverty creeps upon you like a robber and destroys you; want attacks you in full armor.

^12-13 Let me describe for you a worthless and a wicked man; first, he is a constant liar; he signals his true intentions to his friends with eyes and feet and fingers. ¹⁴ He is always thinking up new schemes to swindle people. He stirs up trouble everywhere.