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- ¶ MY son, if you have become surety for your friend, if you have obligated yourself to a stranger,
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- Then you are snared with the words of your mouth, you are caught with the words of your lips.
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- 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.
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- You shall not give sleep to your eyes nor slumber to your eyelids.
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- Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the snare, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
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- ¶ Be like the ant, consider her ways, and be wise;
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- Though having no harvest and no ruler over her, neither any one to guide her,
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- She provides her bread in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.
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- How long will you sleep, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
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- Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands on the chest;
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- And then poverty shall come upon you, and distress shall overtake you;
become a successful man.
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- ¶ A fool, a wicked man, is unscrupulous.
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- He winks with his eyes, he signals with his feet, he makes signs with his fingers;
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- He is perverse in his heart, he devises mischief continually;
he sows discord.
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- Therefore his calamity shall come suddenly;
suddenly will he be broken without remedy.
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- There are six things which the LORD hates;
yea, the seventh is an abomination to him:
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- Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.
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- A heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that are swift in running to mischief,
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- A false witness who speaks lies, and he who sows discord among brothers.
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- ¶ My son, keep your father’s commandment and do not forsake the law of your mother;
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- Impress them firmly on your heart and tie them about your neck.
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- 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.
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- For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is a light, and the reproofs of instruction are the way of life,
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- To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
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- 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.
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- For the appearance of a harlot is tempting like a loaf of bread;
and the adulteress hunts for the precious life.
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- Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?
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- Can one walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
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- So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife and touches her;
he shall not be innocent.
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- No one wonders at a thief when he is caught stealing, for he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry;
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- But if he is caught, he shall pay sevenfold;
he shall give all the goods of his house.
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- But he who commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding, and he destroys his own soul.
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- And he who does it brings dishonor upon himself;
and his reproach shall not be wiped out.
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- For jealousy provokes a man’s rage;
therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
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- He will not regard any ransom;
nor will he listen, though you increase the bribe.
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