Proverbs 4-6

American Standard Version

4 Hear, my sons, the instruction of a father,
And attend to know understanding:
² For I give you good doctrine;
Forsake ye not my ^[a]law.
³ For I was a son unto my father,
Tender and ^[b]only beloved in the sight of my mother.
⁴ And he taught me, and said unto me:
Let thy heart retain my words;
Keep my commandments, and live;
⁵ Get wisdom, get understanding;
Forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth;
⁶ Forsake her not, and she will preserve thee;
Love her, and she will keep thee.
^7 [c]Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom;
Yea, with all ^[d]thy getting get understanding.
⁸ Exalt her, and she will promote thee;
She will bring thee to honor, when thou dost embrace her.
⁹ She will give to thy head a chaplet of grace;
A crown of ^[e]beauty will she deliver to thee.

¹⁰ Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings;
And the years of thy life shall be many.
¹¹ I have taught thee in the way of wisdom;
I have led thee in paths of uprightness.
¹² When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened;
And if thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.
¹³ Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go:
Keep her; for she is thy life.
¹⁴ Enter not into the path of the wicked,
And walk not in the way of evil men.
¹⁵ Avoid it, pass not by it;
Turn from it, and pass on.
¹⁶ For they sleep not, except they do evil;
And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.
¹⁷ For they eat the bread of wickedness,
And drink the wine of violence.
¹⁸ But the path of the righteous is as the dawning light,
That shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
¹⁹ The way of the wicked is as darkness:
They know not at what they stumble.

²⁰ My son, attend to my words;
Incline thine ear unto my sayings.
²¹ Let them not depart from thine eyes;
Keep them in the midst of thy heart.
²² For they are life unto those that find them,
And health to all their flesh.
²³ Keep thy heart ^[f]with all diligence;
For out of it are the issues of life.
²⁴ Put away from thee a wayward mouth,
And perverse lips put far from thee.
²⁵ Let thine eyes look right on,
And let thine eyelids look straight before thee.
^26 [g]Make level the path of thy feet,
And let all thy ways be ^[h]established.
²⁷ Turn not to the right hand nor to the left:
Remove thy foot from evil.

5 My son, attend unto my wisdom;
Incline thine ear to my understanding:
² That thou mayest preserve discretion,
And that thy lips may keep knowledge.
³ For the lips of a strange woman drop honey,
And her mouth is smoother than oil:
⁴ But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.
⁵ Her feet go down to death;
Her steps take hold on Sheol;
^6 [i]So that she findeth not the level path of life:
Her ways are unstable, and ^[j]she knoweth it not.

⁷ Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me,
And depart not from the words of my mouth.
⁸ Remove thy way far from her,
And come not nigh the door of her house;
⁹ Lest thou give thine honor unto others,
And thy years unto the cruel;
¹⁰ Lest strangers be filled with thy ^[k]strength,
And thy labors be in the house of an alien,
¹¹ And thou ^[l]mourn at thy latter end,
When thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
¹² And say, How have I hated instruction,
And my heart despised reproof;
¹³ Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers,
Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
¹⁴ I was well-nigh in all evil
In the midst of the assembly and congregation.

¹⁵ Drink waters out of thine own cistern,
And running waters out of thine own well.
^16 [m]Should thy springs be dispersed abroad,
And streams of water in the streets?
¹⁷ Let them be for thyself alone,
And not for strangers with thee.
¹⁸ Let thy fountain be blessed;
And rejoice in the wife of thy youth.
¹⁹ As a loving hind and a pleasant doe,
Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times;
And ^[n]be thou ravished always with her love.
²⁰ For why shouldest thou, my son, ^[o]be ravished with a strange woman,
And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
²¹ For the ways of man are before the eyes of Jehovah;
And he ^[p]maketh level all his paths.
²² His own iniquities shall take the wicked,
And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.
²³ He shall die for lack of instruction;
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

6 My son, if thou art become surety for thy neighbor,
If thou hast stricken ^[q]thy hands for a stranger;
² Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth,
Thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.
³ Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself,
Seeing thou art come into the hand of thy neighbor:
Go, ^[r]humble thyself, and importune thy neighbor;
⁴ Give not sleep to thine eyes,
Nor slumber to thine eyelids;
⁵ Deliver thyself as a ^[s]roe from the hand of the hunter,
And as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

⁶ Go to the ant, thou sluggard;
Consider her ways, and be wise:
⁷ Which having no ^[t]chief,
Overseer, or ruler,
⁸ Provideth her bread in the summer,
And gathereth her food in the harvest.
⁹ How long wilt thou ^[u]sleep, O sluggard?
When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
¹⁰ Yet a little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to ^[v]sleep:
¹¹ So shall thy poverty come as a ^[w]robber,
And thy want as ^[x]an armed man.
¹² A worthless person, a man of iniquity,
Is he that walketh with a perverse mouth;
¹³ That winketh with his eyes, that ^[y]speaketh with his feet,
That ^[z]maketh signs with his fingers;
¹⁴ In whose heart is perverseness,
Who deviseth evil continually,
Who ^[aa]soweth discord.
¹⁵ Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly;
On a sudden shall he be broken, and that without remedy.
¹⁶ There are six things which Jehovah hateth;
Yea, seven which are an abomination ^[ab]unto him:
¹⁷ Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood;
¹⁸ A heart that deviseth wicked purposes,
Feet that are swift in running to mischief,
¹⁹ A false witness that ^[ac]uttereth lies,
And he that ^[ad]soweth discord among brethren.

²⁰ My son, keep the commandment of thy father,
And forsake not the ^[ae]law of thy mother:
²¹ Bind them continually upon thy heart;
Tie them about thy neck.
²² When thou walkest, it shall lead thee;
When thou ^[af]sleepest, it shall watch over thee;
And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.
²³ For ^[ag]the commandment is a lamp; and ^[ah]the law is light;
And reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
²⁴ To keep thee from the evil woman,
From the flattery of the foreigner’s tongue.
²⁵ Lust not after her beauty in thy heart;
Neither let her take thee with her eyelids.
²⁶ For on account of a harlot a man is brought to a piece of bread;
And ^[ai]the adulteress hunteth for the precious life.
²⁷ Can a man take fire in his bosom,
And his clothes not be burned?
²⁸ Or can one walk upon hot coals,
And his feet not be scorched?
²⁹ So he that goeth in to his neighbor’s wife;
Whosoever toucheth her shall not be ^[aj]unpunished.
³⁰ Men do not despise a thief, if he steal
To satisfy ^[ak]himself when he is hungry:
³¹ But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold;
He shall give all the substance of his house.
³² He that committeth adultery with a woman is void of ^[al]understanding:
He doeth it who would destroy his own soul.
³³ Wounds and dishonor shall he get;
And his reproach shall not be wiped away.
³⁴ For jealousy is the rage of a man;
And he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
³⁵ He will not regard any ransom;
Neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.