Proverbs 6

English Standard Version

Practical Warnings

6 My son, if you have put up ^(A)security for your neighbor,
    have ^(B)given your pledge for a stranger,
²if you are ^(C)snared in the words of your mouth,
    caught in the words of your mouth,
³then do this, my son, and save yourself,
    for you have come into the hand of your neighbor:
    go, hasten,^[a] and ^(D)plead urgently with your neighbor.
⁴^(E)Give your eyes no sleep
    and your eyelids no slumber;
⁵save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,^[b]
    ^(F)like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

⁶^(G)Go to ^(H)the ant, O ^(I)sluggard;
    consider her ways, and ^(J)be wise.
⁷^(K)Without having any chief,
    ^(L)officer, or ruler,
⁸she prepares her bread ^(M)in summer
    and ^(N)gathers her food in harvest.
⁹^(O)How long will you lie there, ^(P)O sluggard?
    When will you arise from your sleep?
¹⁰^(Q)A little sleep, a little slumber,
    ^(R)a little ^(S)folding of the hands to rest,
¹¹^(T)and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
    and want like an armed man.

¹²^(U)A worthless person, a wicked man,
    goes about with ^(V)crooked speech,
¹³^(W)winks with his eyes, signals^[c] with his feet,
    points with his finger,
¹⁴with ^(X)perverted heart ^(Y)devises evil,
    continually ^(Z)sowing discord;
¹⁵therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;
    ^(AA)in a moment he will be broken ^(AB)beyond healing.

¹⁶There are ^(AC)six things that the Lord hates,
    ^(AD)seven that are an abomination to him:
¹⁷^(AE)haughty eyes, ^(AF)a lying tongue,
    and ^(AG)hands that shed innocent blood,
¹⁸^(AH)a heart that devises wicked plans,
    ^(AI)feet that make haste to run to evil,
¹⁹^(AJ)a false witness who ^(AK)breathes out lies,
    and one who ^(AL)sows discord among brothers.

Warnings Against Adultery

²⁰^(AM)My son, keep your father's commandment,
    ^(AN)and forsake not your mother's teaching.
²¹^(AO)Bind them on your heart always;
    ^(AP)tie them around your neck.
²²^(AQ)When you walk, they^[d] will lead you;
    ^(AR)when you lie down, they will ^(AS)watch over you;
    and when you awake, they will talk with you.
²³For the commandment is ^(AT)a lamp and the teaching a light,
    and the ^(AU)reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
²⁴to preserve you from the evil woman,^[e]
    from the smooth tongue of ^(AV)the adulteress.^[f]
²⁵^(AW)Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
    and do not let her capture you with her ^(AX)eyelashes;
²⁶for ^(AY)the price of a prostitute is only ^(AZ)a loaf of bread,^[g]
    but a married woman^[h] ^(BA)hunts down a precious life.
²⁷Can a man carry ^(BB)fire next to his ^(BC)chest
    and his clothes not be burned?
²⁸Or can one ^(BD)walk on hot coals
    and his feet not be scorched?
²⁹So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife;
    none who touches her ^(BE)will go unpunished.
³⁰People do not despise a thief if he steals
    to ^(BF)satisfy his appetite when he is hungry,
³¹but ^(BG)if he is caught, he will pay ^(BH)sevenfold;
    he will give all the goods of his house.
³²He who commits adultery lacks sense;
    he who does it destroys himself.
³³He will get wounds and dishonor,
    and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
³⁴For ^(BI)jealousy makes a man furious,
    and he will not spare when ^(BJ)he takes revenge.
³⁵He will accept no compensation;
    he will refuse though you multiply gifts.

Footnotes

Proverbs 6:3 Or humble yourself
Proverbs 6:5 Hebrew lacks of the hunter
Proverbs 6:13 Hebrew scrapes
Proverbs 6:22 Hebrew it; three times in this verse
Proverbs 6:24 Revocalization (compare Septuagint) yields from the wife of a neighbor
Proverbs 6:24 Hebrew the foreign woman
Proverbs 6:26 Or (compare Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate) for a prostitute leaves a man with nothing but a loaf of bread
Proverbs 6:26 Hebrew a man's wife

Leviticus 25

English Standard Version

The Sabbath Year

25 ^(A)The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ²“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into ^(B)the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. ³For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, ⁴but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ⁵^(C)You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. ⁶The Sabbath of the land^[a] shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves^[b] and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, ⁷and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: ^(D)all its yield shall be for food.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸“You shall count seven weeks^[c] of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. ⁹Then you shall sound ^(E)the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. ^(F)On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. ¹⁰And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and ^(G)proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of ^(H)you shall return to his clan. ¹¹That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it ^(I)you shall neither sow nor reap ^(J)what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. ¹²For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. ^(K)You may eat the produce of the field.^[d]

¹³^(L)“In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. ¹⁴And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, ^(M)you shall not wrong one another. ¹⁵^(N)You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. ¹⁶If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. ¹⁷^(O)You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

¹⁸^(P)“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then ^(Q)you will dwell in the land securely. ¹⁹^(R)The land will yield its fruit, and ^(S)you will eat your fill ^(T)and dwell in it securely. ²⁰And if you say, ^(U)‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if ^(V)we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ ²¹I will ^(W)command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. ²²^(X)When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of ^(Y)the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.

Redemption of Property

²³“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for ^(Z)the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. ²⁴And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.

²⁵“If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, ^(AA)then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. ²⁶If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, ²⁷let ^(AB)him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. ²⁸But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall ^(AC)be released, and ^(AD)he shall return to his property.

²⁹“If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. ³⁰If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; ^(AE)it shall not be released in the jubilee. ³¹But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and ^(AF)they shall be released in the jubilee. ³²As for ^(AG)the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. ³³And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. ³⁴But the fields ^(AH)of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.

Kindness for Poor Brothers

³⁵“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, ^(AI)you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. ³⁶^(AJ)Take no interest from him or profit, but ^(AK)fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. ³⁷^(AL)You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. ³⁸^(AM)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

³⁹^(AN)“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: ⁴⁰he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ⁴¹^(AO)Then he shall go out from you, ^(AP)he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^(AQ)to the possession of his fathers. ⁴²For they are ^(AR)my servants,^[e] whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ⁴³^(AS)You shall not rule over him ^(AT)ruthlessly but ^(AU)shall fear your God. ⁴⁴As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. ⁴⁵^(AV)You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. ⁴⁶You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel ^(AW)you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

Redeeming a Poor Man

⁴⁷“If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and ^(AX)your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan, ⁴⁸then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, ⁴⁹or his uncle or his cousin may ^(AY)redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he ^(AZ)grows rich he may redeem himself. ⁵⁰He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be ^(BA)rated as the time of a hired worker. ⁵¹If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. ⁵²If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. ⁵³He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. ^(BB)He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. ⁵⁴And if he is not redeemed by these means, then ^(BC)he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. ⁵⁵For it is ^(BD)to me that the people of Israel are servants.^[f] They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Footnotes

Leviticus 25:6 That is, the Sabbath produce of the land
Leviticus 25:6 Or servants
Leviticus 25:8 Or Sabbaths
Leviticus 25:12 Or countryside
Leviticus 25:42 Hebrew slaves
Leviticus 25:55 Or slaves

Acts 26

English Standard Version

Paul's Defense Before Agrippa

26 So ^(A)Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense:

²“I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today ^(B)against all the accusations of the Jews, ³especially because you are familiar with all the ^(C)customs and ^(D)controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.

⁴^(E)“My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among ^(F)my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. ⁵They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that ^(G)according to the strictest ^(H)party of our ^(I)religion I have lived as ^(J)a Pharisee. ⁶And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in ^(K)the promise made by God to our fathers, ⁷^(L)to which ^(M)our twelve tribes hope to ^(N)attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope ^(O)I am accused by Jews, O king! ⁸Why is it thought ^(P)incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

⁹^(Q)“I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of ^(R)Jesus of Nazareth. ¹⁰^(S)And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority ^(T)from the chief priests, but ^(U)when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. ¹¹And ^(V)I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them ^(W)blaspheme, and ^(X)in raging fury against them I ^(Y)persecuted them even to foreign cities.

Paul Tells of His Conversion

¹²“In this connection ^(Z)I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. ¹³At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. ¹⁴And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me ^(AA)in the Hebrew language,^[a] ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ ¹⁵And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. ¹⁶But rise and ^(AB)stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, ^(AC)to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, ¹⁷^(AD)delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—^(AE)to whom I ^(AF)am sending you ¹⁸^(AG)to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from ^(AH)the power of Satan to God, that they may receive ^(AI)forgiveness of sins and ^(AJ)a place among those who are sanctified ^(AK)by faith in me.’

¹⁹“Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to ^(AL)the heavenly vision, ²⁰but declared first ^(AM)to those in Damascus, ^(AN)then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also ^(AO)to the Gentiles, that they should ^(AP)repent and ^(AQ)turn to God, performing deeds ^(AR)in keeping with their repentance. ²¹For this reason ^(AS)the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. ²²^(AT)To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so ^(AU)I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what ^(AV)the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: ²³^(AW)that the Christ ^(AX)must suffer and that, ^(AY)by being the first ^(AZ)to rise from the dead, ^(BA)he would proclaim ^(BB)light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, ^(BC)you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.” ²⁵But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, ^(BD)most excellent Festus, but I am speaking ^(BE)true and ^(BF)rational words. ²⁶For ^(BG)the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. ²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.” ²⁸And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be ^(BH)a Christian?”^[b] ²⁹And Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day ^(BI)might become such as I am—except for ^(BJ)these chains.”

³⁰Then the king rose, and ^(BK)the governor and Bernice and those who were sitting with them. ³¹And when they had withdrawn, they said to one another, ^(BL)“This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.” ³²And Agrippa said to Festus, ^(BM)“This man could have been set ^(BN)free if he had not appealed ^(BO)to Caesar.”