Proverbs 20:23–25

¹⁰Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord.

⁷¶ He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

¹⁰Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath.

¹A FALSE balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.

⁵Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

⁹A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.

²³¶ O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

¹²What man is he that feareth the Lord? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.

²³The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.

⁴Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths.

⁸The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.

²³But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:

²⁸For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

⁶I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

⁷Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.

⁴When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.

⁵Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

⁶Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?

³³¶ Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

⁹And if it be a beast, whereof men bring an offering unto the Lord, all that any man giveth of such unto the Lord shall be holy.

¹⁰He shall not alter it, nor change it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good: and if he shall at all change beast for beast, then it and the exchange thereof shall be holy.

¹⁵If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering:

⁸¶ Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.

⁹Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.

¹⁰Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

²If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.

³If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father’s house in her youth;

⁴And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her: then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand.

⁵But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her.

⁶And if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or uttered ought out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul;

⁷And her husband heard it, and held his peace at her in the day that he heard it: then her vows shall stand, and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand.

⁸But if her husband disallowed her on the day that he heard it; then he shall make her vow which she vowed, and that which she uttered with her lips, wherewith she bound her soul, of none effect: and the Lord shall forgive her.

⁹But every vow of a widow, and of her that is divorced, wherewith they have bound their souls, shall stand against her.

¹⁰And if she vowed in her husband’s house, or bound her soul by a bond with an oath;

¹¹And her husband heard it, and held his peace at her, and disallowed her not: then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she bound her soul shall stand.

¹²But if her husband hath utterly made them void on the day he heard them; then whatsoever proceeded out of her lips concerning her vows, or concerning the bond of her soul, shall not stand: her husband hath made them void; and the Lord shall forgive her.

¹³Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void.

¹⁴But if her husband altogether hold his peace at her from day to day; then he establisheth all her vows, or all her bonds, which are upon her: he confirmeth them, because he held his peace at her in the day that he heard them.

¹⁵But if he shall any ways make them void after that he hath heard them; then he shall bear her iniquity.

¹⁶These are the statutes, which the Lord commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, between the father and his daughter, being yet in her youth in her father’s house.

¹⁰There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.

¹¹But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat.

¹²If the priest’s daughter also be married unto a stranger, she may not eat of an offering of the holy things.

¹³But if the priest’s daughter be a widow, or divorced, and have no child, and is returned unto her father’s house, as in her youth, she shall eat of her father’s meat: but there shall no stranger eat thereof.

¹⁴¶ And if a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly, then he shall put the fifth part thereof unto it, and shall give it unto the priest with the holy thing.

¹⁵And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer unto the Lord;

³⁰And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s: it is holy unto the Lord.

³¹And if a man will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof.

⁷A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.