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Chapter 4
1 Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend that you may know prudence.
2 I will give you a good gift, forsake not my law.
3 For I also was my father's son, tender and as an only son in the sight of my mother:
4 And he taught me, and said: Let your heart receive my words, keep my commandments, and you shall live.
5 Get wisdom, get prudence: forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth.
6 Forsake her not, and she shall keep you: love her, and she shall preserve you.
7 The beginning of wisdom, get wisdom, and with all your possession purchase prudence.
8 Take hold on her, and she shall exalt you: you shall be glorified by her, when you shall embrace her.
9 She shall give to your head increase of graces, and protect you with a noble crown.
10 Hear, O my son, and receive my words, that years of life may be multiplied to you.
11 I will shew you the way of wisdom, I will lead you by the paths of equity:
12 Which when you shall have entered, your steps shall not be straitened, and when you run you shall not meet a stumblingblock.
13 Take hold on instruction, leave it not: keep it, because it is your life.
14 Be not delighted in the paths of the wicked, neither let the way of evil men please you.
15 Flee from it, pass not by it: go aside, and forsake it.
16 For they sleep not except they have done evil: and their sleep is taken away unless they have made some to fall.
17 They eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of iniquity.
18 But the path of the just, as a shining light, goes forwards and increases even to perfect day.
19 The way of the wicked is darksome: they know not where they fall.
20 My son, hearken to my words, and incline your ear to my sayings.
21 Let them not depart from your eyes, keep them in the midst of your heart:
22 For they are life to those that find them, and health to all flesh.
23 With all watchfulness keep your heart, because life issues out from it.
24 Remove from you a froward mouth, and let detracting lips be far from you.
25 Let your eyes look straight on, and let your eyelids go before your steps.
26 Make straight the path for your feet, and all your ways shall be established.
27 Decline not to the right hand, nor to the left: turn away your foot from evil. For the Lord know the ways that are on the right hand: but those are perverse which are on the left hand. But he will make your courses straight, he will bring forward your ways in peace.