Proverbs 4

Chapter 4

Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend, that you may know prudence.

²I will give you a good gift, forsake not my law.

³For I also was my father’s son, tender, and as an only son in the sight of my mother:

⁴And he taught me, and said: Let thy heart receive my words, keep my commandments, and thou shalt live.

⁵Get wisdom, get prudence: forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth.

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

⁷The beginning of wisdom, get wisdom, and with all thy possession purchase prudence.

⁸Take hold on her, and she shall exalt thee: thou shalt be glorified by her, when thou shalt embrace her.

⁹She shall give to thy head increase of graces, and protect thee with a noble crown.

¹⁰Hear, O my son, and receive my words, that years of life may be multiplied to thee.

¹¹I will shew thee the way of wisdom, I will lead thee by the paths of equity:

¹²Which when thou shalt have entered, thy steps shall not be straitened, and when thou runnest, thou shalt not meet a stumblingblock.

¹³Take hold on instruction, leave it not: keep it, because it is thy life.

¹⁴Be not delighted in the paths of the wicked, neither let the way of evil men please thee.

¹⁵Flee from it, pass not by it: go aside, and forsake it.

¹⁶For they sleep not, except they have done evil: and their sleep is taken away unless they have made some to fall.

¹⁷They eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of iniquity.

¹⁸But the path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forwards, and increaseth even to perfect day.

¹⁹The way of the wicked is darksome: they know not where they fall.

²⁰My son, hearken to my words, and incline thy ear to my sayings.

²¹Let them not depart from thy eyes, keep them in the midst of thy heart:

²²For they are life to those that find them, and health to all flesh.

²³With all watchfulness keep thy heart, because life issueth out from it.

²⁴Remove from thee a froward mouth, and let detracting lips be far from thee.

²⁵Let thy eyes look straight on, and let thy eyelids go before thy steps.

²⁶Make straight the path for thy feet, and all thy ways shall be established.

²⁷Decline not to the right hand, nor to the left: turn away thy foot from evil. For the Lord knoweth the ways that are on the right hand: but those are perverse which are on the left hand. But he will make thy courses straight, he will bring forward thy ways in peace.