Proverbs 6  Living Bible

6 Son, if you endorse a note for someone you hardly know, guaranteeing his debt, you are in serious trouble. ² You may have trapped yourself by your agreement. ³ Quick! Get out of it if you possibly can! Swallow your pride; don’t let embarrassment stand in the way. Go and beg to have your name erased. ⁴ Don’t put it off. Do it now. Don’t rest until you do. ⁵ If you can get out of this trap you have saved yourself like a deer that escapes from a hunter or a bird from the net.

⁶ Take a lesson from the ants, you lazy fellow. Learn from their ways and be wise! ⁷ For though they have no king to make them work, ⁸ yet they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. ⁹ But you—all you do is sleep. When will you wake up? ¹⁰ “Let me sleep a little longer!” Sure, just a little more! ¹¹ And as you sleep, poverty creeps upon you like a robber and destroys you; want attacks you in full armor.

^12-13 Let me describe for you a worthless and a wicked man; first, he is a constant liar; he signals his true intentions to his friends with eyes and feet and fingers. ¹⁴ He is always thinking up new schemes to swindle people. He stirs up trouble everywhere. ¹⁵ But he will be destroyed suddenly, broken beyond hope of healing.

^16-19 For there are six things the Lord hates—no, seven: haughtiness, lying, murdering, plotting evil, eagerness to do wrong, a false witness, sowing discord among brothers.

²⁰ Young man, obey your father and your mother. ²¹ Take to heart all of their advice; keep in mind everything they tell you. ²² Every day and all night long their counsel will lead you and save you from harm; when you wake up in the morning, let their instructions guide you into the new day. ²³ For their advice is a beam of light directed into the dark corners of your mind to warn you of danger and to give you a good life. ²⁴ Their counsel will keep you far away from prostitutes, with all their flatteries, and unfaithful wives of other men.

²⁵ Don’t lust for their beauty. Don’t let their coyness seduce you. ²⁶ For a prostitute will bring a man to poverty, and an adulteress may cost him his very life. ²⁷ Can a man hold fire against his chest and not be burned? ²⁸ Can he walk on hot coals and not blister his feet? ²⁹ So it is with the man who commits adultery with another’s wife. He shall not go unpunished for this sin. ³⁰ Excuses might even be found for a thief if he steals when he is starving! ³¹ But even so, he is fined seven times as much as he stole, though it may mean selling everything in his house to pay it back.

³² But the man who commits adultery is an utter fool, for he destroys his own soul. ³³ Wounds and constant disgrace are his lot, ³⁴ for the woman’s husband will be furious in his jealousy, and he will have no mercy on you in his day of vengeance. ³⁵ You won’t be able to buy him off no matter what you offer.