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6:1  My child, if you have given your pledge to your neighbour, if you have bound yourself to another,
6:2  you are snared by the utterance of your lips, caught by the words of your mouth.
6:3  So do this, my child, and save yourself, for you have come into your neighbour’s power: go, hurry, and plead with your neighbour.
6:4  Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber;
6:5  save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
6:6  Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.
6:7  Without having any chief or officer or ruler,
6:8  it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest.
6:9  How long will you lie there, O lazybones? When will you rise from your sleep?
6:10  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,
6:11  and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior.
6:12  A scoundrel and a villain goes around with crooked speech,
6:13  winking the eyes, shuffling the feet, pointing the fingers,
6:14  with perverted mind devising evil, continually sowing discord;
6:15  on such a one calamity will descend suddenly; in a moment, damage beyond repair.
6:16  There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him:
6:17  haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
6:18  a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil,
6:19  a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.
6:20  My child, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
6:21  Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck.
6:22  When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.
6:23  For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
6:24  to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
6:25  Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
6:26  for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread, but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.
6:27  Can fire be carried in the bosom without burning one’s clothes?
6:28  Or can one walk on hot coals without scorching the feet?
6:29  So is he who sleeps with his neighbour’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.
6:30  Thieves are not despised who steal only to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry.
6:31  Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold; they will forfeit all the goods of their house.
6:32  But he who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself.
6:33  He will get wounds and dishonour, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
6:34  For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge.
6:35  He will accept no compensation, and refuses a bribe no matter how great.