To know wisdom and instruction, to understand sayings of understanding,

to gain {insightful instruction}, righteousness and justice and equity,

to give shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and purpose to the young,

to understand a proverb and an expression, words of wisdom and their riddles.

My child, may you keep your father's instruction, and do not reject your mother's teachings,

My child, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

Like Sheol, we will swallow them alive and whole, {like those who descend to the pit}.

My child, do not walk in their way. Keep your foot from their paths,

for their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed blood,

May you turn to my argument! Behold, I shall pour out my spirit upon you; I will make my words known to you.

You have ignored all my counsel, and my reproof you are not willing [to accept].

they were not willing [to accept] my counsel, they despised all my reproof.

Whoever listens to me will dwell in security and rest securely from dread and disaster."

[in order] to incline your ear toward wisdom, [then] you shall apply your heart to understanding.

[in order] to guard paths of justice and keep the way of his faithful [ones].

for wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasing to your soul.

[in order] to deliver you from the way of evil, from a man who speaks devious things--

those who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in ways of darkness,

those who are happy to do evil, [for] they delight in [the] deviousness of evil,

[in order] to deliver you from a strange woman, from a foreign woman [who] flatters [with] her sayings,

for her house sinks to death, and to the dead are her paths.

[Of] all who go to her, none shall return, nor do they reach paths of life.

My child, do not forget my instruction, and may your heart guard my commands.

For length of days, years of life, and peace they shall add to you.

{Trust Yahweh} with all your heart; do not lean toward your own understanding.

Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear Yahweh and retreat from evil.

Honor Yahweh from your substance, and from the firstfruits of all that will come to you,

Do not despise the discipline of Yahweh, my child. Do not be weary of his reproof

With his knowledge, depths broke open, and clouds dropped dew.

Do not be afraid of sudden panic, or the storm of wickedness that will come.

Do not withhold good from its owner when it is in the power of your hand to do.

Do not say to your neighbor, "Go and return and tomorrow I will give [it]," {when it is with you}.

Do not plot harm against your neighbor [who] dwells in confidence beside you.

Do not quarrel with anyone without cause, when he did not do you harm.

Do not envy a man of violence, and do not choose any of his ways,

With those who scorn, he is scornful, but to those who are humble, he gives favor.

Children, listen [to the] instruction of a father, and be attentive [in order] to know insight.

For I have given you good instruction; do not forsake my teaching.

When I was a son to my father, tender and alone before my mother,

he taught me and said to me, "May your heart hold fast [to] my words; guard my commandments and live.

Get wisdom and insight; do not forget and do not turn from the sayings of my mouth.

Do not forsake her--then she will guard you; love her and she will keep you.

Seize the instruction! Do not let go! Guard her, for she is your life.

In the path of the wicked do not go; do not walk in the way of those who do evil.

Avoid it; do not transgress it; turn away from it and pass by.

For they will not sleep if they have not done wrong, and they are robbed of their sleep if they do not cause stumbling.

But the path of the righteous ones [is] like the light of dawn, leading and shining until the day {is full}.

The way of the wicked ones [is] like deep darkness; they do not know what they stumble over.

My child, be attentive to my words; to my sayings incline your ear.

For they are life to those who find them and healing {to the entire body}.

Do not swerve right or left; remove your foot from evil.

My child, be attentive to my wisdom, and to my understanding incline your ear;

[in order] to keep prudence, and knowledge will guard your lips.

But her end is bitter as the wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

Her feet go down [to] death; her steps take hold [of] Sheol.

Now, O children, listen to me; do not depart from the sayings of my mouth.

Keep your paths far from her, and do not go near to the door of her house,

lest you give your honor to the others, and your years to the merciless,

lest strangers take [their] fill of your strength, and your labors [go] to the house of a foreigner,

and "I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, and I did not incline my ear to my instructors!

[She is] a deer of love and a doe of grace; may her breasts satisfy you {always}; by her love may you be intoxicated continually.

He shall die {for lack of} discipline, and in the greatness of his folly he shall be lost.

My child, if you have pledged to your neighbor, [if] you have bound {yourself} to the stranger,

do this, then, my child, and save yourself, for you have come into {the palm of your neighbor's hand}: Go, humble yourself, plead with your neighbor.

Do not give sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eyelids.

Go to the ant, lazy! Consider its ways and be wise.

a devising heart, plans of deception, feet that hurry to run to evil,

My child, keep [the] commandment of your father, and do not disregard [the] instruction of your mother.

Bind them on your heart continually; tie them upon your neck.

[in order] to preserve you from an evil woman, from the smoothness of [the] tongue of {an adulteress}.

Do not desire her beauty in your heart; may she not capture you with her eyelashes.

For [the] price of a woman, a prostitute, [is the] price of a loaf of bread, but the {woman belonging to a man} hunts precious life.

Thus, he who goes to the wife of his neighbor, any who touches her shall not go unpunished.

[People] do not despise a thief when he steals to fill himself when he is hungry.

For jealousy [is the] fury of a husband, and he will not show restraint on the day of revenge.

Say to wisdom, "you are my sister," and you shall call insight, "{intimate friend}."

[In order] to guard yourself from {an adulteress}, from the foreigner who {makes her words smooth}.

passing on the street {at} her corner, and he takes the road [to] her house,

at twilight, at [the] day's evening, in [the] midst of night and the darkness.

Then behold! A woman [comes] to meet him [with the] garment of a prostitute and {a secret heart}.

She is loud and stubborn; her feet do not stay at her house.

She took hold of him and kissed him. Her face was impudent, and she said to him,

So I have come out to meet you, to seek your face, and I have found you.

The bag of money he took in his hand, for [on] the day of the full moon he will come home."

He goes after her suddenly; like an ox to the slaughter he goes, and like a stag to the instruction of a fool,

And now, my children, listen to me, and be attentive to the sayings of my mouth.

May your heart not turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her path.

The ways of Sheol [are] her house, descending to chambers of death.

"To you, O {people}, I call, and my cry is to the children of humankind.

My mouth will utter truth, and wickedness [is] an abomination to my lips.

All of them are straight to him who understands, and upright to those who find knowledge.

[in order] to endow those who love me [with] wealth, and I will fill their treasuries.

{when he assigned} his limits to the sea, that waters shall not transgress his {command}, {when he marked} the foundations of the earth,

I was {beside} him, a master workman, and I was delighting day by day, rejoicing before him {always},

"And now, children, listen to me; happy [are] those who will keep my ways.

Hear teaching and be wise; do not neglect [it].

Happy [is the] person who listens to me, [in order] to keep watch at my doors day by day, [in order] to guard the frames of my entrances.

"Whoever [is] simple, let him turn here." As for the one who lacks {sense}, she says to him,

Do not rebuke a scoffer, lest he hate you; rebuke the wise and he will love you.

Give to a wise one and he will become more wise; {teach} a righteous one and he will increase learning.