Chronological
4 ¶ Hearken, ye sons, unto the chastening of the father, and pay attention that ye might know understanding.
2 For I give you good doctrine; do not forsake my law.
3 For I was my father’s son, tender and unique in the sight of my mother.
4 He taught me and said unto me, Sustain thine heart with my words; keep my commandments, and live.
5 Get wisdom, get understanding; forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.
6 Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee; love her, and she shall keep thee.
7 Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
8 Grow in wisdom, and she shall promote thee; she shall bring thee to honour when thou hast embraced her.
9 She shall give to thine head an increase of grace; a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.
10 Hear, O my son, and receive my words, and the years of thy life shall be multiplied.
11 I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have caused thee to walk in right paths.
12 When thou goest in these paths, thy steps shall not be hindered; and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.
13 Take fast hold of chastening; do not let go; keep this; for it is thy life.
14 ¶ Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.
15 Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.
16 For they do not sleep, unless they have done evil; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause someone to fall.
17 For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
18 But the path of the just is as the light of the morning star, that shines more and more until the day is perfect.
19 The way of the wicked is as darkness; they do not know in what they stumble.
20 ¶ My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my words.
21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.
22 For they are life unto those that find them and medicine to all their flesh.
23 Above all else, guard thy heart; for out of it flows the issues of life.
24 Put away from thee the perversion of the mouth, and the deviation of the lips put far from thee.
25 Let thine eyes look upon that which is right, and let thine eyelids straighten thy path before thee.
26 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
27 Turn not to the right hand nor to the left; remove thy foot from evil.
5 ¶ My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my intelligence;
2 that thou may keep council and that thy lips may conserve knowledge.
3 For the lips of the strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil,
4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death, her steps uphold Sheol,
6 lest thou should ponder the path of life, her ways are unstable; thou shalt not know them.
7 Hear me now therefore, O ye sons, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8 Remove thy way far from her, and do not come near the door of her house,
9 lest thou give thine honour unto others and thy years unto the cruel,
10 lest strangers be filled with thy wealth, and thy labours be in the house of a stranger,
11 and thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed
12 and say, How have I hated chastening and my heart despised reproof
13 and have not obeyed the voice of those who chastened me, nor inclined my ear to those that instructed me!
14 I have been in almost every kind of evil, in the midst of society and of the congregation.
15 ¶ Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well.
16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of thy waters in the streets.
17 Let them be only thine own and not for strangers with thee.
18 Thy fountain shall be blessed; and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love, without eyes for anyone else.
20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a woman belonging to someone else, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he weighs all his goings.
22 His own iniquities shall take hold of the wicked, and he shall be imprisoned with the cords of his sins.
23 He shall die because he did not submit to chastening; and due to the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
6 ¶ My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,
2 thou art snared with the words of thy mouth; thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.
3 Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, for thou hast fallen into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.
4 Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.
5 Escape as a roe from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
6 ¶ Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise,
7 Who having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
8 provides her food in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.
9 How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:
11 So shall thy poverty come as one that travels and thy want as an armed man.
12 ¶ A wicked man of Belial walks with a perverse mouth.
13 He winks with his eyes, he speaks with his feet, he teaches with his fingers;
14 there is perversion in his heart; he devises evil continually; he sows discord.
15 Therefore his calamity shall come suddenly; suddenly he shall be broken without remedy.
16 These six things does the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that are swift in running to evil,
19 a false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren.
20 ¶ My son, keep thy father’s commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother:
21 Bind them continually upon thine heart and tie them about thy neck.
22 When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.
23 For the commandment is fire, and the law is light; and reproofs of chastening are the way of life,
24 to keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
25 Lust not after her beauty in thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyes.
26 For by means of a whorish woman a man is reduced to a piece of bread, and the woman will hunt the precious soul of the man.
27 Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?
28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
29 So is he that goes in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever touches her shall not be innocent.
30 Men do not take a thief lightly, even if he steals to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;
31 and once he is taken, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.
32 But whosoever commits adultery with a woman has a fault in his heart; he that does it corrupts his own soul.
33 A wound and dishonour shall he get, and his reproach shall never be wiped away.
34 For the jealous rage of a man will not spare in the day of vengeance.
35 He will not regard any ransom; neither will he want to forgive, though thou givest many bribes.
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