Proverbs 17:22–23

¹³A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

²⁵Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.

¹⁴The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

¹⁰For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

⁷¶ Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

⁸Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.

⁹Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.

²By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

³And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

⁴And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

⁵And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

⁷So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.

³For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.

⁴My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.

⁵By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.

¹⁵My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

³When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

⁴For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

¹⁹Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.

⁸¶ And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.

³¶ That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.

⁸A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it: whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth.

²³Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

³Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you.

³And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.

¹²In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.

¹⁰¶ And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went unto the chief priests, to betray him unto them.

¹¹And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray him.

¹¹The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us.

¹⁶A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.

¹⁴A gift in secret pacifieth anger: and a reward in the bosom strong wrath.