잠언 6

Get free from a rash pledge

¹My son, if you have guaranteed a loan for your neighbor \q and shaken hands on it for a stranger, ²the words of your mouth have snared you; \q what you said has caught you. ³So, my son, do this and get yourself free, \q since you have fallen into your neighbor’s power: \q go and humble yourself, and keep pressing your neighbor. ⁴Give your eyes no sleep \q and your eyelids no rest. ⁵Get yourself free like a gazelle from the hunter’s grip, \q like a bird from the hand of the one who traps it.

Learn from the ant

⁶You lazy one, go and look at the ant; \q watch how it lives, and learn wisdom. ⁷It has no chief, no overseer and no ruler, ⁸yet it gets its food ready in summer \q and gathers its supplies at harvest time.^{a 9}Lazy one, how long will you stay lying there? \q When will you rise from sleeping? ¹⁰“A bit more sleep, a bit more dozing, \q a bit more lying with arms folded,” ¹¹and poverty will be on you like a drifter on the road, \q and need like a man with a shield.

The troublemaker

¹²A scoundrel, a troublemaker, \q goes about with twisted speech, ¹³winking with the eye, shuffling the feet, \q signaling with the fingers, ¹⁴with a heart full of deceit, always planning harm \q and stirring up quarrels. ¹⁵So disaster will come on such a person suddenly, \q and in a moment break them beyond healing.

Seven things the LORD hates

¹⁶Six things the LORD hates, \q and seven he detests with his whole being: ¹⁷eyes that look down on others, a tongue that tells lies, \q hands that spill innocent blood, ¹⁸a heart that works out wicked plans, \q feet in a hurry to run to evil, ¹⁹a false witness who breathes out lies, \q and one who sows quarrels among brothers and sisters.

Another man’s wife

²⁰My son, hold on to your father’s command \q and do not let go of what your mother teaches you. ²¹Keep them tied to your heart at all times; \q wear them knotted around your neck. ²²As you walk, it will lead you; \q as you lie down, it will keep watch over you; \q and when you wake, it will talk with you. ²³For a command is a lamp and teaching is a light, \q and the warnings that discipline brings are the road to life, ²⁴to guard you from the evil woman \q and the smooth tongue of the outsider.^{b 25}Do not let your heart crave her beauty, \q and do not let her catch you with her glances, ²⁶For a prostitute’s price may be only a loaf of bread, \q but a married woman stalks a man’s whole life.^c

Playing with fire

²⁷Can a man carry fire against his chest \q and not set his clothes alight? ²⁸Or can a man walk over live coals \q and his feet not be burned? ²⁹It is the same with the man who sleeps with his neighbor’s wife: \q anyone who touches her will pay for it. ³⁰People do not despise a thief who steals \q to fill an empty stomach when he is starving, ³¹yet if he is caught he must pay back seven times over, \q even if it takes everything in his house. ³²But a man who commits adultery has no sense; \q only someone bent on destroying himself would do it. ³³Blows and disgrace will be his, \q and his shame will never be erased. ³⁴For jealousy makes a husband furious, \q and when the day of revenge comes he will not hold back. ³⁵He will accept no payment to settle it, \q and no gift, however large, will satisfy him.