Thursday 20th October 2022

Practical Admonitions

6My child, if you have given your pledge to your neighbour,
   if you have bound yourself to another,^*
2 you are snared by the utterance of your lips,^*
   caught by the words of your mouth.
³ So do this, my child, and save yourself,
   for you have come into your neighbour’s power:
   go, hurry,^* and plead with your neighbour.
⁴ Give your eyes no sleep
   and your eyelids no slumber;
⁵ save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter,^*
   like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

⁶ Go to the ant, you lazybones;
   consider its ways, and be wise.
⁷ Without having any chief
   or officer or ruler,
⁸ it prepares its food in summer,
   and gathers its sustenance in harvest.
⁹ How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
   When will you rise from your sleep?
¹⁰ A little sleep, a little slumber,
   a little folding of the hands to rest,
¹¹ and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
   and want, like an armed warrior.

¹² A scoundrel and a villain
   goes around with crooked speech,
¹³ winking the eyes, shuffling the feet,
   pointing the fingers,
¹⁴ with perverted mind devising evil,
   continually sowing discord;
¹⁵ on such a one calamity will descend suddenly;
   in a moment, damage beyond repair.

¹⁶ There are six things that the Lord hates,
   seven that are an abomination to him:
¹⁷ haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
   and hands that shed innocent blood,
¹⁸ a heart that devises wicked plans,
   feet that hurry to run to evil,
¹⁹ a lying witness who testifies falsely,
   and one who sows discord in a family.

²⁰ My child, keep your father’s commandment,
   and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
²¹ Bind them upon your heart always;
   tie them around your neck.
²² When you walk, they^* will lead you;
   when you lie down, they^* will watch over you;
   and when you awake, they^* will talk with you.
²³ For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
   and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
²⁴ to preserve you from the wife of another,^*
   from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
²⁵ Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
   and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
²⁶ for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread,^*
   but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.
²⁷ Can fire be carried in the bosom
   without burning one’s clothes?
²⁸ Or can one walk on hot coals
   without scorching the feet?
²⁹ So is he who sleeps with his neighbour’s wife;
   no one who touches her will go unpunished.
³⁰ Thieves are not despised who steal only
   to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry.
³¹ Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold;
   they will forfeit all the goods of their house.
³² But he who commits adultery has no sense;
   he who does it destroys himself.
³³ He will get wounds and dishonour,
   and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
³⁴ For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury,
   and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge.
³⁵ He will accept no compensation,
   and refuses a bribe no matter how great.

NRSV