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Practical Admonitions

My son, if you have become surety for your neighbor,
    have given your pledge for a stranger;
if you are snared in the utterance of your lips,[a]
    caught in the words of your mouth;
then do this, my son, and save yourself,
    for you have come into your neighbor’s power:
    go, hasten,[b] and importune your neighbor.
Give your eyes no sleep
    and your eyelids no slumber;
save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter,[c]
    like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 6:2 Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb the words of your mouth
  2. Proverbs 6:3 Or humble yourself
  3. Proverbs 6:5 Cn: Heb hand

My son, if thou art become surety for thy neighbor,
If thou hast stricken [a]thy hands for a stranger;
Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth,
Thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.
Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself,
Seeing thou art come into the hand of thy neighbor:
Go, [b]humble thyself, and importune thy neighbor;
Give not sleep to thine eyes,
Nor slumber to thine eyelids;
Deliver thyself as a [c]roe from the hand of the hunter,
And as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 6:1 Or, thy hand with a stranger
  2. Proverbs 6:3 Or, bestir
  3. Proverbs 6:5 Or, gazelle

15 He who gives surety for a stranger will smart for it,
    but he who hates suretyship is secure.

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15 He that is surety for a stranger [a]shall smart for it;
But he that hateth [b]suretyship is secure.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 11:15 Hebrew shall be sore broken.
  2. Proverbs 11:15 Hebrew those that strike hands.

18 A man without sense gives a pledge,
    and becomes surety in the presence of his neighbor.

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18 A man void of [a]understanding striketh hands,
And becometh surety in the presence of his neighbor.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 17:18 Hebrew heart.

16 Take a man’s garment when he has given surety for a stranger,
    and hold him in pledge when he gives surety for foreigners.

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16 Take his garment that is surety for a stranger;
And [a]hold him in pledge that is surety for [b]foreigners.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 20:16 Or, take a pledge of him
  2. Proverbs 20:16 Another reading is, a foreign woman.

26 Be not one of those who give pledges,
    who become surety for debts.
27 If you have nothing with which to pay,
    why should your bed be taken from under you?

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26 Be thou not one of them that strike hands,
Or of them that are sureties for debts.
27 If thou hast not wherewith to pay,
Why should he take away thy bed from under thee?

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