✧1Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. ✧2Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips. ✧3A stone [is] heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool’s wrath [is] heavier than them both. ✧4Wrath [is] cruel, and anger [is] outrageous; but who [is] able to stand before envy? ✧5Open rebuke [is] better than secret love. ✧6Faithful [are] the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy [are] deceitful. ✧7The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. ✧8As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so [is] a man that wandereth from his place. ✧9
King James Version (KJV). King James Version (1769 text). Public domain outside the United Kingdom.
Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so [doth] the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.
✧10Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother’s house in the day of thy calamity: [for] better [is] a neighbour [that is] near than a brother far off.
✧11My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that reproacheth me.
✧12A prudent [man] foreseeth the evil, [and] hideth himself; [but] the simple pass on, [and] are punished.
✧13Take his garment that is surety for a stranger, and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
✧14He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him.
✧15A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.
✧16Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, [which] bewrayeth [itself].
✧17Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
✧18Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured.
✧19As in water face [answereth] to face, so the heart of man to man.
✧20Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
✧21[As] the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so [is] a man to his praise.
✧22Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, [yet] will not his foolishness depart from him.
✧23Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, [and] look well to thy herds.
✧24For riches [are] not for ever: and doth the crown [endure] to every generation?
✧25The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered.
✧26The lambs [are] for thy clothing, and the goats [are] the price of the field.
✧27And [thou shalt have] goats’ milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and [for] the maintenance for thy maidens.