Proverbs 30:15–29

¹⁵The leech has two daughters;

“Give, give,” they cry.

Three things are never satisfied;

four never say, “Enough”:

¹⁶Sheol, the barren womb,

the earth ever-thirsty for water,

and the fire that never says, “Enough.”^*

¹⁷The eye that mocks a father

and scorns to obey a mother

will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley

and eaten by the vultures.^*

¹⁸Three things are too wonderful for me;

four I do not understand:

¹⁹the way of an eagle in the sky,

the way of a snake on a rock,

the way of a ship on the high seas,

and the way of a man with a woman.

²⁰This is the way of an adulteress:

she eats and wipes her mouth

and says, “I have done no wrong.”^*

²¹Under three things the earth trembles;

under four it cannot bear up:

²²a slave when he becomes king

and a fool when glutted with food,^*

²³a contemptible woman when she gets a husband

and a maid when she supplants her mistress.

²⁴Four things on earth are small,

yet they are exceedingly wise:

²⁵the ants are a people without strength,

yet they provide their food in the summer;^*

²⁶the badgers are a people without power,

yet they make their homes in the rocks;^*

²⁷the locusts have no king,

yet all of them march in rank;

²⁸the lizard^x can be grasped in the hand,

yet it is found in kings’ palaces.

²⁹Three things are stately in their stride;

four are stately in their gait: