Proverbs 2:10–16

¹⁶Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.

¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

¹²Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.

¹THROUGH desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.

²A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

¹³My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste:

¹⁴So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off.

³⁴My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord.

¹⁶²I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil.

¹⁰More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

¹¹¹Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart.

³³Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding: but that which is in the midst of fools is made known.

¹⁰³How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

⁹⁷O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.

¹⁵See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

⁶Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.

²¹Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee.

¹⁰If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct.

⁹Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.

¹⁰With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.

¹¹Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

¹⁵Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.

¹⁶Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.

¹⁷The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools.

¹⁸Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.

²²When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.

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

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

³³Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

²⁰He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.

¹³The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

¹⁷Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

³For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

⁴None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

⁵They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

³⁰Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

¹⁰¶ My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

¹¹If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

¹²Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

¹³We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

¹⁴Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

¹⁵My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

¹⁶For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

¹⁷Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

¹⁸And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

¹⁹So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

²⁸A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.

²⁹A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good.

³⁰He shutteth his eyes to devise froward things: moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass.

³²For the froward is abomination to the Lord: but his secret is with the righteous.

¹⁴¶ Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.

¹⁵Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.

¹⁶For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

¹⁷For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.

⁶Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.

⁴Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties.

⁴Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.

⁵Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.

⁴I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers.

⁵I have hated the congregation of evil doers; and will not sit with the wicked.

⁴A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person.

¹⁹And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

²⁰For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

¹⁹The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.

¹⁹They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

²⁰For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

²¹For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

²²But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

¹⁶The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.

⁵Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

⁶Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

⁷For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

¹⁰For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.

²⁶When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.

¹²Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth.

¹³When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.

⁴For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

⁵And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

⁶If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

⁶¶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

³⁵Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

⁹When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,

¹⁰And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.

¹¹This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

⁴³When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.

⁴⁴Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.

⁴⁵Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

³They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

³The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.

⁵They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.

⁶And them that are turned back from the Lord; and those that have not sought the Lord, nor inquired for him.

¹³They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof.

¹⁴The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief.

¹⁵The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me: and disguiseth his face.

¹⁶In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime: they know not the light.

²¹Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

²³It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom.

³²Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

¹⁵What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.

⁶Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

⁴And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them.

⁵And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money.

³They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.

¹¹In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain.

¹⁵They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.

⁵As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.

⁸The way of man is froward and strange: but as for the pure, his work is right.

⁵They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.

¹⁵That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

⁸The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

⁸¶ Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:

⁹That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord:

¹⁰Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:

¹¹Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.

¹²Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:

¹³Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.

²⁶And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.

¹⁴The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein.

²⁷For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

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

⁵That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.

⁶¶ For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,

⁷And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,

⁸Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house,

⁹In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night:

¹⁰And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart.

¹¹(She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house:

¹²Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)

¹³So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,

¹⁴I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows.

¹⁵Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.

¹⁶I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.

¹⁹For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:

²⁰He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.

²¹With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.

²²He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks;

²³Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.

³And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

⁴And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.

⁵And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field.

⁶And he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand; and he knew not ought he had, save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured.

⁷¶ And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me.

⁸But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand;

⁹There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?

¹⁰And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her.

¹¹And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business; and there was none of the men of the house there within.

¹²And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.

²⁶Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.

²⁷Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?

⁵A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet.

³¶ For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

⁴But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

⁶Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

⁷Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

⁸Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

⁹Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

¹⁰Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

¹¹And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

¹²And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

¹³And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

¹⁴I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

¹⁵¶ Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

¹⁶Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

¹⁷Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.

¹⁸Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

¹⁹Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

²⁰And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?