Proverbs 6

²⁶Do not be one who gives pledges, who puts up security for debts.

¹⁸A man lacking judgment strikes hands in pledge and puts up security for his neighbor.

¹⁶Take the garment of the one who posts security for a stranger; get collateral if it is for a foreigner.

¹⁵He who puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer, but the one who hates indebtedness is secure.

⁹I will guarantee his safety. You may hold me personally responsible. If I do not bring him back and set him before you, then may I bear the guilt before you all my life.

³²Indeed, your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father, saying, ‘If I do not return him to you, I will bear the guilt before you, my father, all my life.’

³³Now please let your servant stay here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy. Let him return with his brothers.

⁷A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to his soul.

¹³An evil man is trapped by his rebellious speech, but a righteous man escapes from trouble.

¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

¹⁴David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

⁸You have not delivered me to the enemy; You have set my feet in the open.

³So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.

⁵Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and he said to them, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You have forsaken Me; therefore, I have forsaken you into the hand of Shishak.’”

¹²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke for the Lord.

⁴I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids,

¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,

¹¹and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit.

³⁵Therefore keep watch, because you do not know when the master of the house will return—whether in the evening, at midnight, when the rooster crows, or in the morning.

³⁶Otherwise, he may arrive without notice and find you sleeping.

¹⁰Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, for in Sheol, where you are going, there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.

¹⁷Let no one on the housetop come down to retrieve anything from his house.

¹⁸And let no one in the field return for his cloak.

³Surely He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly plague.

⁷We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; the net is torn, and we have slipped away.

¹⁷How futile it is to spread the net where any bird can see it!

⁴The slacker does not plow in season; at harvest time he looks, but nothing is there.

⁹Whoever is slothful in his work is brother to him who destroys.

⁴The slacker craves yet has nothing, but the soul of the diligent is fully satisfied.

⁹How long will you lie there, O slacker? When will you get up from your sleep?

¹²Then you will not be sluggish, but will imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

²⁶‘You wicked, lazy servant!’ replied his master. ‘You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.

³⁹Can you hunt the prey for a lioness or satisfy the hunger of young lions

²⁷the locusts have no king, yet they all advance in formation;

²⁶Does the hawk take flight by your understanding and spread his wings toward the south?

²⁷Does the eagle soar at your command and make his nest on high?

⁴Will he make a covenant with you to take him as a slave for life?

⁵Can you pet him like a bird or put him on a leash for your maidens?

⁵He who gathers in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.

¹⁹treasuring up for themselves a firm foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

²⁵The ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer;

³³A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,

³⁴and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit.

⁸Take notice, O senseless among the people! O fools, when will you be wise?

¹⁴Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?

¹⁴So it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

²²“How long, O simple ones, will you love your simple ways? How long will scoffers delight in their scorn and fools hate knowledge?

¹¹And do this, understanding the occasion. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

³³A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,

³⁴and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit.

⁶Walk in the manner of the ant, O slacker; observe its ways and become wise.

³³Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will utter perversities.

³⁴You will be like one sleeping on the high seas or lying on the top of a mast:

⁴The slacker craves yet has nothing, but the soul of the diligent is fully satisfied.

⁴The slacker does not plow in season; at harvest time he looks, but nothing is there.

⁴Idle hands make one poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.

³⁴and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit.

³⁴You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

²⁷A worthless man digs up evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire.

²⁴Put away deception from your mouth; keep your lips from perverse speech.

¹³At the same time they will also learn to be idle, going from house to house and being not only idle, but also gossips and busybodies, discussing things they should not mention.

²Your tongue devises destruction like a sharpened razor, O worker of deceit.

³You love evil more than good, falsehood more than speaking truth. Selah

⁷See what they spew from their mouths—sharp words from their lips: “For who can hear us?”

¹⁹Let not my enemies gloat over me without cause, nor those who hate me without reason wink in malice.

¹²Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash,

¹⁰He who winks the eye causes grief, and foolish lips will come to ruin.

⁶She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.

¹Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.

¹⁷Now I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Turn away from them.

⁷For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it should produce, the foreigners would swallow it up.

¹⁸a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that run swiftly to evil,

¹⁹a false witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up discord among brothers.

¹⁷Like one who grabs a dog by the ears is a passerby who meddles in a quarrel not his own.

¹⁸Like a madman shooting firebrands and deadly arrows,

⁴Even on his bed he plots wickedness; he sets himself on a path that is not good; he fails to reject evil.

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.

¹¹and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

²⁷when your dread comes like a storm, and your destruction like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish overwhelm you.

¹³this iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly—in an instant!

¹⁴It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”

¹⁸Surely You set them on slick ground; You cast them down into ruin.

¹⁹How suddenly they are laid waste, completely swept away by terrors!

⁵The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked; His soul hates the lover of violence.

¹³To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech.

²⁰The perverse in heart are an abomination to the Lord, but the blameless in their walk are His delight.

¹⁵Acquitting the guilty and condemning the righteous—both are detestable to the Lord.

¹⁶For everyone who behaves dishonestly in regard to these things is detestable to the Lord your God.

³²for the Lord detests the perverse, but He is a friend to the upright.

²Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.

³What will He do to you, and what will be added to you, O deceitful tongue?

²²Lying lips are detestable to the Lord, but those who deal faithfully are His delight.

¹⁵When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.

⁵Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, I will put to silence; the one with haughty eyes and a proud heart, I will not endure.

⁶You destroy those who tell lies; the Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.

²⁸A lying tongue hates those it crushes, and a flattering mouth causes ruin.

⁵Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time.

¹⁶For their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed blood.

¹⁴Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?

⁴Even on his bed he plots wickedness; he sets himself on a path that is not good; he fails to reject evil.

¹⁵“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

¹⁷do not plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor, and do not love to swear falsely, for I hate all these things,” declares the Lord.

⁵A false witness will not go unpunished, and one who utters lies will not escape.

¹⁴With deceit in his heart he devises evil; he continually sows discord.

¹⁸Peacemakers who sow in peace reap the fruit of righteousness.

¹²Do not hand me over to the will of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence.

⁹A false witness will not go unpunished, and one who pours out lies will perish.

¹⁶If a false witness testifies against someone, accusing him of a crime,

¹⁷both parties to the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord, before the priests and judges who are in office at that time.

¹Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

¹⁶‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

¹My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you.

²Keep my commandments and live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.

⁸Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.

⁹For they are a garland of grace on your head and a pendant around your neck.

²²Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

¹¹There is a generation of those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.

³Never let loving devotion or faithfulness leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

³Tie them to your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your kinsman,

³It is clear that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

⁸Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

¹⁶So it shall serve as a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead, for with a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

⁶Do not forsake wisdom, and she will preserve you; love her, and she will guard you.

¹¹I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.

²³Then you will go on your way in safety, and your foot will not stumble.

²⁴When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you rest, your sleep will be sweet.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you, and understanding will guard you,

²⁴Your testimonies are indeed my delight; they are my counselors.

⁹⁷Oh, how I love Your law! All day long it is my meditation.

³Send out Your light and Your truth; let them lead me. Let them bring me to Your holy mountain and to the place where You dwell.

¹⁰⁵Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

¹⁹We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

⁸The precepts of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart; the commandments of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.

³¹He who listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise.

¹³Hold on to instruction; do not let go. Guard it, for it is your life.

⁴he taught me and said, “Let your heart lay hold of my words; keep my commands and you will live.

¹⁶It will rescue you from the forbidden woman, from the stranger with seductive words

⁵that they may keep you from the adulteress, from the stranger with seductive words.

²⁶And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared.

³Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,

¹⁴But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed.

¹⁵Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

²⁸But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

³⁰Now when Jehu arrived in Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it. So she painted her eyes, adorned her head, and looked down from a window.

²One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman.

³So David sent and inquired about the woman, and he was told, “This is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”

⁹You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your neck.

¹⁶The Lord also says: “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty—walking with heads held high and wanton eyes, prancing and skipping as they go, jingling the bracelets on their ankles—

³⁰But when this son of yours returns from squandering your wealth with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

³A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.

¹⁴she called her household servants. “Look,” she said, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us. He came to me so he could sleep with me, but I screamed as loud as I could.

³⁶And everyone left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver or a morsel of bread, pleading, “Please appoint me to some priestly office so that I can eat a piece of bread.”’”

¹⁸and tell them that this is what the Lord God says: Woe to the women who sew magic charms on their wrists and make veils for the heads of people of every height, in order to ensnare their souls. Will you ensnare the souls of My people but preserve your own?

⁸Mockers inflame a city, but the wise turn away anger.

⁹If my heart has been enticed by my neighbor’s wife, or I have lurked at his door,

¹⁰then may my own wife grind grain for another, and may other men sleep with her.

⁵In the same way, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it boasts of great things. Consider how small a spark sets a great forest ablaze.

⁴They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.

⁵The princes are inflamed with wine on the day of our king; so he joins hands with those who mock him.

¹Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good to abstain from sexual relations.

¹⁰If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must surely be put to death.

⁹Why then have you despised the command of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You put Uriah the Hittite to the sword and took his wife as your own. You have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites.

¹⁰Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’

¹¹One man commits an abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and yet another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter.

⁵“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.

³So David sent and inquired about the woman, and he was told, “This is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”

⁴Then David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. (Now she had just purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned home.

⁸But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I will repay it fourfold.”

¹⁸He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it; he cannot enjoy the profits of his trading.

⁶Because he has done this thing and has shown no pity, he must pay for the lamb four times over.”

¹“If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters or sells it, he must repay five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.

²If a thief is caught breaking in and is beaten to death, no one shall be guilty of bloodshed.

²⁵Since the man was unable to pay, the master ordered that he be sold to pay his debt, along with his wife and children and everything he owned.

⁷I saw among the simple, I noticed among the youths, a young man lacking judgment,

⁴Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

²²He follows her on impulse, like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer bounding into a trap,

²³until an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare—not knowing it will cost him his life.

²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,

²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

¹⁸For her house sinks down to death, and her tracks to the departed spirits.

¹⁹None who go to her return or negotiate the paths of life.

²⁵I directed my mind to understand, to explore, to search out wisdom and explanations, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the folly of madness.

²⁶And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared.

⁹lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;

¹⁰lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.

⁵For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not turned aside from anything the Lord commanded all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

¹A Psalm of David, for remembrance. O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger or discipline me in Your wrath.

²For Your arrows have pierced me deeply, and Your hand has pressed down on me.

²⁶Did not King Solomon of Israel sin in matters like this? There was not a king like him among many nations, and he was loved by his God, who made him king over all Israel—yet foreign women drew him into sin.

⁶and Jesse the father of David the king. Next: David was the father of Solomon by Uriah’s wife,

¹⁹And having lulled him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his head. In this way she began to subdue him, and his strength left him.

²⁰Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When Samson awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.

¹⁴and if a feeling of jealousy comes over her husband and he suspects his wife who has defiled herself—or if a feeling of jealousy comes over him and he suspects her even though she has not defiled herself—

⁴Wrath is cruel and anger is like a flood, but who can withstand jealousy?

⁶Set me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unrelenting as Sheol. Its sparks are fiery flames, the fiercest blaze of all.

²²Are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

¹¹“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned My wrath away from the Israelites; for he was zealous for My sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in My zeal.

²⁹When he reached his house, he picked up a knife, took hold of his concubine, cut her limb by limb into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout the territory of Israel.

³⁰And everyone who saw it said, “Nothing like this has been seen or done from the day the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt until this day. Think it over, take counsel, and speak up!”

²⁵Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth,

¹Now Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in his master’s sight and highly regarded, for through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. And he was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.

⁹“So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not kept My ways, but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

⁹So mankind is brought low, and man is humbled—do not forgive them!

³When I was a son to my father, tender and the only child of my mother,

¹³She seizes him and kisses him; she brazenly says to him: