6 1 Instruction for sureties. 6 The slothful and sluggish is stirred to work. 12 He describeth the nature of the wicked. 16 The things that God hateth. 20 To observe the word of God. 24 To flee adultery.

¹ My son, if thou be surety for thy neighbor, and hast stricken hands with the stranger,

² Thou art ^[a]snared with the words of thy mouth: thou art even taken with the words of thine own mouth.

³ Do this now, my Son, and deliver thyself: seeing thou art come into the hand of thy neighbor, go, and humble thyself, and solicit thy friends.

⁴ Give no sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.

⁵ Deliver thyself as a Doe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

¹⁷ A friend loveth at all times; and a ^[a]brother is born for adversity.

¹⁰ If thou be ^[a]faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.

¹⁰ Thine own friend and thy father’s friend forsake thou not: neither enter into thy brother’s ^[a]house in the day of thy calamity: for better is a neighbor that is near, than a brother far off.