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Chapter 6
1 My son, if you be surety for your friend, you have engaged fast your hand to a stranger.
2 You are ensnared with the words of your mouth, and caught with your own words.
3 Do therefore, my son, what I say, and deliver yourself: because you are fallen into the hand of your neighbour. Run about, make haste, stir up your friend:
4 Give not sleep to your eyes, neither let your eyelids slumber.
5 Deliver yourself as a doe from the hand, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
6 Go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom:
7 Which, although she has no guide, nor master, nor captain,
8 provides her meat for herself in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.
9 How long will you sleep, O sluggard? when will you rise out of your sleep?
10 You will sleep a little, you will slumber a little, you will fold your hands a little to sleep:
11 And want shall come upon you, as a traveller, and poverty as a man armed. But if you be diligent, your harvest shall come as a fountain, and want shall flee far from you.
12 A man that is an apostate, an unprofitable man, walks with a perverse mouth,
13 He winks with the eyes, presses with the foot, speaks with the finger.
14 With a wicked heart he devises evil, and at all times he sows discord.
15 To such a one his destruction shall presently come, and he shall suddenly be destroyed, and shall no longer have any remedy.
16 Six things there are, which the Lord hates, and the seventh his soul detests:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that devises wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief,
19 A deceitful witness that utters lies, and him that sows discord among brethren.
20 My son, beep the commandments of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother.
21 Bind them in your heart continually, and put them about your neck.
22 When you walk, let them go with you: when you sleep, let them keep you; and when you awake, talk with them.
23 Because the commandment is a lamp, and the law a light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
24 That they may keep you from the evil woman, and from the flattering tongue of the stranger.
25 Let not your heart covet her beauty, be not caught with her winks:
26 For the price of a harlot is scarce one loaf: but the woman catches the precious soul of a man.
27 Can a man hide fire in his bosom, and his garments not burn?
28 Or can he walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt?
29 So he that goes in to his neighbour's wife, shall not be clean when he shall touch her.
30 The fault is not so great when a man has stolen: for he steals to fill his hungry soul:
31 And if he be taken he shall restore sevenfold, and shall give up all the substance of his house.
32 But he that is an adulterer, for the folly of his heart shall destroy his own soul:
33 He gathers to himself shame and dishonour, and his reproach shall not be blotted out:
34 Because the jealousy and rage of the husband will not spare in the day of revenge,
35 Nor will he yield to any man's prayers, nor will he accept for satisfaction ever so many gifts.