Proverbs 30:1-20 ▼

1 The words of Agur, son of Jakeh: the lifting up: the declaration of the man to Ithiel; to Ithiel and Ucal:

2 For I am brutish more than man, and not the understanding of a man to me.

3 I learnt not wisdom, and I shall not know the knowledge of the holy.

4 Who went up to the heavens, and came down? who gathered the wind in his fists? who bound the waters in a garment? who set up all the ends of the earth? what his name and what his son's name, if thou shalt know?

5 All the word of God is purified: he a shield to those trusting in him.

6 Thou shalt not add to his words lest he reprove in thee, and thou wert false.

7 Two things I asked from thee, thou wilt not withhold from me before I shall die:

8 Vanity and the word of falsehood remove far from me; thou wilt not give to me poverty and riches; feed me with bread of my allowance:

9 Lest I shall be filled and I spake lies, and said, Who is Jehovah? and lest I shall be dispossessed and I stole, and I laid hold upon the name of God.

10 Thou shalt not slander the servant to his lord lest he shall curse thee, and thou wert guilty.

11 A generation will curse its father, and will not bless its mother.

12 A generation pure in its eyes, and not washed from its finding.

13 A generation, how its eyes were raised up and its eyelashes will be lifted up.

14 A generation, its teeth swords, and its biter's teeth, knives, to devour the poor from the land, and the needy from man.

15 To the leech two daughters: Give, give. Behold, three shall not satisfied; four shall not say, Wealth:

16 Hades; and the closed womb; the earth not filled with water; and fire said not, Wealth.

17 The eye shall mock to his father, and despise to obey the mother, the ravens of the valley shall bore it out and the sons of the eagle shall eat it.

18 They three were wonderful above me; and four, I knew them not:

19 The way of the eagle in the heavens; the way of the serpent upon the rock; the way of the ship in the heart of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

20 So the way of a woman committing adultery; eating and wiping her mouth, and saying, I transgressed not.