Yahweh will be {your confidence} and guard your foot from capture.

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,

for he who is perverse [is] an abomination of Yahweh, but those who are upright [are] his confidence.

The curse of Yahweh [is] on the house of the wicked, and the abode of the righteous ones he blesses.

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,

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

Cherish her and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her.

She will give a garland for your head; she shall bestow a crown of glory upon you."

In the way of wisdom I have instructed you; I have led you in the path of uprightness.

{When you walk}, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble.

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.

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

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

May your eyes look forward and your gaze be straight before you.

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

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

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 you groan at your end, when your flesh and body are consumed,

and say "How I hated discipline, and I despised reproof!"

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

I was almost at utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation."

May they be yours alone, and not for strangers [who are] with you.

[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.

Why should you be intoxicated, my child, by a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?

For before the eyes of Yahweh [are] {human ways}, and all his paths he examines.

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

[if] you are snared by the sayings of your mouth, [if] you are caught by the sayings of your mouth,

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.

Save yourself like a gazelle from a hand, or like a bird from the hand of a fowler.

How long will you lie down, lazy? When will you rise up from your sleep?

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands for rest--

like a {robber} shall your poverty come, and what you lack like an armed man.

A worthless man, an evil man, goes around with {deceitful speech}.

Winking in his eye, shuffling in his foot, pointing in his fingers,

Upon {such a man}, suddenly shall his calamity come; in a moment he will be damaged and there is no healing.

There are six [things] Yahweh hates, and seven [things are] abominations of his soul:

haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

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

a false witness who breathes lies and sends out discord between brothers.

{When you walk}, she will lead you, {When you lie down}, she will watch over you, and [when] you awake, she will converse [with] you.

For [like] a lamp [is] a commandment, and instruction [is] light, and the way of life [is the] reproof of discipline,

[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.

Can a man carry fire in his lap, and his clothes not burn?

If a man walks upon the hot coals, will his feet not be burned?

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.

He who commits adultery [with] a woman lacks {sense}, he destroys himself who does it.

A wound and dishonor he will find, and his disgrace will not be wiped out.

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

My child, guard my sayings; store my commandments with you.

Keep my commands and live, and my teaching like [the] {apple of your eye}.

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}.

For at the window of my house, through my lattice, I looked down.

And I saw among the simple, I observed among the youth, a young man lacking {sense},

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

"Sacrifices of peace offerings [are] upon me; {today} I completed my vows.

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

[With] coverings I have adorned my couch, spreads of the linen of Egypt;

I have perfumed my bed [with] myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

For there is no man in his home; he has gone on a {long journey}.

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

until an arrow pierces his {entrails}, like a bird rushing into a snare, but he does not know that {it will cost him his life}.

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

Learn prudence, O simple ones; fools, learn {intelligence}.

Listen! For noble things I will speak, and upright things from the opening of my lips.

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

Take my teaching and not silver; may you choose knowledge rather than choice gold.

I, wisdom, live with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion.

The fear of Yahweh [is] hatred of evil, pride, and arrogance and an evil way. And I hate a mouth of perversity.

{Advice and sound judgment} are mine; I am understanding, {strength is mine}.

I love {those who love me}, and those who seek me diligently shall find me.

In the way of righteousness I walk, in the midst of paths of justice,

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

"Yahweh possessed me, [the] first of his ways, before his acts {of old}.

From eternity, I was set up from [the] first, from the beginning of the earth.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth, when there were no springs of {abounding} water.

Before mountains had been shaped, before hills, I was brought forth.

{when he established} the heavens, there I [was], {when he drew} a circle upon the face of the deep,

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.

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.

For he who finds me [is] he who finds life, and he obtains favor from Yahweh.

But he who misses me injures himself. All those who hate me love death."

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

"Come, eat with my bread; drink with the wine I have mixed.

Lay aside simplicity and live; walk in the way of understanding."

He who corrects a scoffer gains abuse for himself, and he who rebukes the wicked {gets hurt}.

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.