Proverbs 6

¹My child, if you have given your pledge to your neighbor,

if you have bound yourself to another,

²you are snared by the utterance of your lips,

caught by the words of your mouth.

³So do this, my child, and save yourself,

for you have come into your neighbor’s power:

go, hurry, and plead with your neighbor.

⁴Give your eyes no sleep

and your eyelids no slumber;

⁵save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter,

like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

⁶Go to the ant, you lazybones;

consider its ways, and be wise.

⁷Without having any chief

or officer or ruler,

⁸it prepares its food in summer,

and gathers its sustenance in harvest.

⁹How long will you lie there, O lazybones?

When will you rise from your sleep?

¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber,

a little folding of the hands to rest,

¹¹and poverty will come upon you like a robber,

and want, like an armed warrior.

¹²A scoundrel and a villain

goes around with crooked speech,

¹³winking the eyes, shuffling the feet,

pointing the fingers,

¹⁴with perverted mind devising evil,

continually sowing discord;

¹⁵on such a one calamity will descend suddenly;

in a moment, damage beyond repair.

¹⁶There are six things that the Lord hates,

seven that are an abomination to him:

¹⁷haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

and hands that shed innocent blood,

¹⁸a heart that devises wicked plans,

feet that hurry to run to evil,

¹⁹a lying witness who testifies falsely,

and one who sows discord in a family.

²⁰My child, keep your father’s commandment,

and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

²¹Bind them upon your heart always;

tie them around your neck.

²²When you walk, they will lead you;

when you lie down, they will watch over you;

and when you awake, they will talk with you.

²³For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,

and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,

²⁴to preserve you from the wife of another,

from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

²⁵Do not desire her beauty in your heart,

and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;

²⁶for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread,

but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.

²⁷Can fire be carried in the bosom

without burning one’s clothes?

²⁸Or can one walk on hot coals

without scorching the feet?

²⁹So is he who sleeps with his neighbor’s wife;

no one who touches her will go unpunished.

³⁰Thieves are not despised who steal only

to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry.

³¹Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold;

they will forfeit all the goods of their house.

³²But he who commits adultery has no sense;

he who does it destroys himself.

³³He will get wounds and dishonor,

and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

³⁴For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury,

and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge.

³⁵He will accept no compensation,

and refuses a bribe no matter how great.