Proverbs 27:1–17

You Don’t Know Tomorrow

¹27Don’t brashly announce what you’re going to do tomorrow;

you don’t know the first thing about tomorrow.

²Don’t call attention to yourself;

let others do that for you.

³Carrying a log across your shoulders

while you’re hefting a boulder with your arms

Is nothing compared to the burden

of putting up with a fool.

⁴We’re blasted by anger and swamped by rage,

but who can survive jealousy?

⁵A spoken reprimand is better

than approval that’s never expressed.

⁶The wounds from a lover are worth it;

kisses from an enemy do you in.

⁷When you’ve stuffed yourself, you refuse dessert;

when you’re starved, you could eat a horse.

⁸People who won’t settle down, wandering hither and yon,

are like restless birds, flitting to and fro.

⁹Just as lotions and fragrance give sensual delight,

a sweet friendship refreshes the soul.

¹⁰Don’t leave your friends or your parents’ friends

and run home to your family when things get rough;

Better a nearby friend

than a distant family.

¹¹Become wise, dear child, and make me happy;

then nothing the world throws my way will upset me.

¹²A prudent person sees trouble coming and ducks;

a simpleton walks in blindly and is clobbered.

¹³Hold tight to collateral on any loan to a stranger;

be wary of accepting what a transient has pawned.

¹⁴If you wake your friend in the early morning

by shouting “Rise and shine!”

It will sound to him

more like a curse than a blessing.

^15–16A nagging spouse is like

the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet;

You can’t turn it off,

and you can’t get away from it.

Your Face Mirrors Your Heart

¹⁷You use steel to sharpen steel,

and one friend sharpens another.