Proverbs 6:1-25 ▼

1 MY son, if you have become surety for your friend, if you have obligated yourself to a stranger,

2 Then you are snared with the words of your mouth, you are caught with the words of your lips.

3 Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself because, for the sake of your friend, you have fallen into the hands of your enemies; go, therefore, and stir up your friend for whom you have become surety to meet his obligation.

4 You shall not give sleep to your eyes nor slumber to your eyelids.

5 Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the snare, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

6 Be like the ant, consider her ways, and be wise;

7 Though having no harvest and no ruler over her, neither any one to guide her,

8 She provides her bread in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.

9 How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?

10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands on the chest;

11 And then poverty shall come upon you, and distress shall overtake you; become a successful man.

12 A fool, a wicked man, is unscrupulous.

13 He winks with his eyes, he signals with his feet, he makes signs with his fingers;

14 He is perverse in his heart, he devises mischief continually; he sows discord.

15 Therefore his calamity shall come suddenly; suddenly will he be broken without remedy.

16 There are six things which the LORD hates; yea, the seventh is an abomination to him:

17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.

18 A heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that are swift in running to mischief,

19 A false witness who speaks lies, and he who sows discord among brothers.

20 My son, keep your father's commandment and do not forsake the law of your mother;

21 Impress them firmly on your heart and tie them about your neck.

22 When you walk, let them follow you; let them be with you, keep them that they may keep you; and when you awake, meditate on them.

23 For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is a light, and the reproofs of instruction are the way of life,

24 To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.

25 Do not lust after her beauty in your heart; neither let her snare you with her eyes, nor let her captivate you with her eyelids.