Old/New Testament
3 My son, don’t forget my teaching,
keep my commands in your heart;
2 for they will add to you many days,
years of life and peace.
3 Do not let grace and truth leave you —
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Then you will win favor and esteem
in the sight of God and of people.
5 Trust in Adonai with all your heart;
do not rely on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him;
then he will level your paths.
7 Don’t be conceited about your own wisdom;
but fear Adonai, and turn from evil.
8 This will bring health to your body
and give strength to your bones.
9 Honor Adonai with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your income.
10 Then your granaries will be filled
and your vats overflow with new wine.
11 My son, don’t despise Adonai’s discipline
or resent his reproof;
12 for Adonai corrects those he loves
like a father who delights in his son.
13 Happy the person who finds wisdom,
the person who acquires understanding;
14 for her profit exceeds that of silver,
gaining her is better than gold,
15 she is more precious than pearls —
nothing you want can compare with her.
16 Long life is in her right hand,
riches and honor in her left.
17 Her ways are pleasant ways,
and all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to those who grasp her;
whoever holds fast to her will be made happy.
19 Adonai by wisdom founded the earth,
by understanding he established the heavens,
20 by his knowledge the deep [springs] burst open
and the dew condenses from the sky.
21 My son, don’t let these slip from your sight;
preserve common sense and discretion;
22 they will be life for your being
and grace for your neck.
23 Then you will walk your way securely,
without hurting your foot.
24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
25 Don’t be afraid of sudden terror or destruction
caused by the wicked, when it comes;
26 for you can rely on Adonai;
he will keep your foot from being caught in a trap.
27 Don’t withhold good from someone entitled to it
when you have in hand the power to do it.
28 Don’t tell your neighbor, “Go away! Come another time;
I’ll give it to you tomorrow,” when you have it now.
29 Don’t plan harm against your neighbor
who lives beside you trustingly.
30 Don’t quarrel with someone for no reason,
if he has done you no harm.
31 Don’t envy a man of violence,
don’t choose any of his ways;
32 for the perverse is an abomination to Adonai,
but he shares his secret counsel with the upright.
33 Adonai’s curse is in the house of the wicked,
but he blesses the home of the righteous.
34 The scornful he scorns,
but gives grace to the humble.
35 The wise win honor,
but fools win shame.
4 Listen, children, to a father’s instruction;
pay attention, in order to gain insight;
2 for I am giving you good advice;
so don’t abandon my teaching.
3 For I too was once a child to my father;
and my mother, too, thought of me as her special darling.
4 He too taught me; he said to me,
“Let your heart treasure my words;
keep my commands, and live;
5 gain wisdom, gain insight;
don’t forget or turn from the words I am saying.
6 Don’t abandon [wisdom]; then she will preserve you;
love her, and she will protect you.
7 The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom!
And along with all your getting, get insight!
8 Cherish her, and she will exalt you;
embrace her, and she will bring you honor;
9 she will give your head a garland of grace,
bestow on you a crown of glory.”
10 Listen, my son, receive what I say,
and the years of your life will be many.
11 I’m directing you on the way of wisdom,
guiding you in paths of uprightness;
12 when you walk, your step won’t be hindered;
and if you run, you won’t stumble.
13 Hold fast to discipline, don’t let it go;
guard it, for it is your life.
14 Don’t follow the path of the wicked
or walk on the way of evildoers.
15 Avoid it, don’t go on it,
turn away from it, and pass on.
16 For they can’t sleep if they haven’t done evil,
they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone fall.
17 For they eat the bread of wickedness
and drink the wine of violence.
18 But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
shining ever brighter until full daylight.
19 The way of the wicked is like darkness;
they don’t even know what makes them stumble.
20 My son, pay attention to what I am saying;
incline your ear to my words.
21 Don’t let them out of your sight,
keep them deep in your heart;
22 for they are life to those who find them
and health to their whole being.
23 Above everything else, guard your heart;
for it is the source of life’s consequences.
24 Keep crooked speech out of your mouth,
banish deceit from your lips.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead,
fix your gaze on what lies in front of you.
26 Level the path for your feet,
let all your ways be properly prepared;
27 then deviate neither right nor left;
and keep your foot far from evil.
5 My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding;
2 so that you will preserve discretion
and your lips keep watch over knowledge.
3 For the lips of a woman who is a stranger drop honey,
her mouth is smoother than oil;
4 but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death,
her steps lead straight to Sh’ol;
6 she doesn’t walk the level path of life —
her course wanders all over, but she doesn’t know it.
7 So now, children, listen to me;
don’t turn away from what I am saying:
8 distance your way from her,
stay far from the door of her house;
9 so that you won’t give your vigor to others
and your years to someone who is cruel,
10 so strangers won’t be filled with your strength
and what you worked for go to a foreign house.
11 Then, when your flesh and bones have shrunk,
at the end of your life, you would moan,
12 “How I hated discipline!
My whole being despised reproof,
13 I ignored what my teachers said,
I didn’t listen to my instructors.
14 I took part in almost every kind of evil,
and the whole community knew it.”
15 Drink the water from your own cistern,
fresh water from your own well.
16 Let what your springs produce be dispersed outside,
streams of water flowing in the streets;
17 but let them be for you alone
and not for strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain, the wife of your youth,
be blessed; find joy in her —
19 a lovely deer, a graceful fawn;
let her breasts satisfy you at all times,
always be infatuated with her love.
20 My son, why be infatuated with an unknown woman?
Why embrace the body of a loose woman?
21 For Adonai is watching a man’s ways;
he surveys all his paths.
22 A wicked person’s own crimes will trap him,
he will be held fast by the ropes of his sin.
23 He will die from lack of discipline;
the magnitude of his folly will make him totter and fall.
1 From: Sha’ul, by God’s will an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua, and brother Timothy
To: God’s Messianic community in Corinth, along with all God’s people throughout Achaia:
2 Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
3 Praised be God, Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, compassionate Father, God of all encouragement and comfort; 4 who encourages us in all our trials, so that we can encourage others in whatever trials they may be undergoing with the encouragement we ourselves have received from God.
5 For just as the Messiah’s sufferings overflow into us, so through the Messiah our encouragement also overflows. 6 So if we undergo trials, it is for your encouragement and deliverance; and if we are encouraged, that should encourage you when you have to endure sufferings like those we are experiencing. 7 Moreover, our hope for you remains staunch, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, you will also share in the encouragement.
8 For, brothers, we want you to know about the trials we have undergone in the province of Asia. The burden laid on us was so far beyond what we could bear that we even despaired of living through it. 9 In our hearts we felt we were under sentence of death. However, this was to get us to rely not on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead! 10 He rescued us from such deadly peril, and he will rescue us again! The one in whom we have placed our hope will indeed continue to rescue us. 11 And you must add your help by praying for us; for the more people there are praying, the more people there will be to give thanks when their prayer for us is answered.
12 For we take pride in this: that our conscience assures us that in our dealings with the world, and especially with you, we have conducted ourselves with frankness and godly pureness of motive — not by worldly wisdom but by God-given grace. 13 There are no hidden meanings in our letters other than what you can read and understand; and my hope is that you will understand fully, 14 as indeed you have already understood us in part; so that on the Day of our Lord Yeshua you can be as proud of us as we are of you.
15 So sure was I of this that I had planned to come and see you, so that you might have the benefit of a second visit. 16 I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, visit you again on my way back from Macedonia, and then have you send me on my way to Y’hudah.
17 Did I make these plans lightly? Or do I make plans the way a worldly man does, ready to say, “Yes, yes,” and “No, no,” in the same breath? 18 As surely as God is trustworthy, we don’t say “Yes” when we mean “No.” 19 For the Son of God, the Messiah Yeshua, who was proclaimed among you through us — that is, through me and Sila and Timothy — was not a yes-and-no man; on the contrary, with him it is always “Yes!” 20 For however many promises God has made, they all find their “Yes” in connection with him; that is why it is through him that we say the “Amen” when we give glory to God. 21 Moreover, it is God who sets both us and you in firm union with the Messiah; he has anointed us, 22 put his seal on us, and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee for the future.
23 I call God to witness — he knows what my life is like — that the reason I held back from coming to Corinth was out of consideration for you! 24 We are not trying to dictate how you must live out your trust in the Messiah, for in your trust you are standing firm. Rather, we are working with you for your own happiness.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.