Hear, my sons, the instruction of a father,
And attend to know understanding:
For I give you good doctrine;
Forsake ye not my {Or, teaching}law.
For I was a son unto my father,
Tender and {Hebrew: an only one.}only beloved in the sight of my mother.
And he taught me, and said unto me:
Let thy heart retain my words;
Keep my commandments, and live;
Get wisdom, get understanding;
Forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth;
Forsake her not, and she will preserve thee;
Love her, and she will keep thee.
{Or, The beginning of wisdom is, Get wisdom}Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom;
Yea, with all {Or, thou hast gotten}thy getting get understanding.
Exalt her, and she will promote thee;
She will bring thee to honor, when thou dost embrace her.
She will give to thy head a chaplet of grace;
A crown of {Or, glory}beauty will she deliver to thee.
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings;
And the years of thy life shall be many.
I have taught thee in the way of wisdom;
I have led thee in paths of uprightness.
When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened;
And if thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.
Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go:
Keep her; for she is thy life.
Enter not into the path of the wicked,
And walk not in the way of evil men.
Avoid it, pass not by it;
Turn from it, and pass on.
For they sleep not, except they do evil;
And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.
For they eat the bread of wickedness,
And drink the wine of violence.
But the path of the righteous is as the dawning light,
That shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
The way of the wicked is as darkness:
They know not at what they stumble.
My son, attend to my words;
Incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Let them not depart from thine eyes;
Keep them in the midst of thy heart.
For they are life unto those that find them,
And health to all their flesh.
Keep thy heart {Or, above all that thou guardest}with all diligence;
For out of it are the issues of life.
Put away from thee a wayward mouth,
And perverse lips put far from thee.
Let thine eyes look right on,
And let thine eyelids look straight before thee.
{Or, Weigh carefully}Make level the path of thy feet,
And let all thy ways be {Or, ordered aright}established.
Turn not to the right hand nor to the left:
Remove thy foot from evil.
Querverweise zu Sprüche 4,17 Spr 4,17
Stolen waters are sweet,And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man;But afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
Behold, as wild asses in the desertThey go forth to their work, seeking diligently for {Hebrew: prey.}food;The wilderness yieldeth them bread for their children.
They cut {Or, his}their provender in the field;And they glean the vintage of the wicked.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge,Who eat up my people as they eat bread,And call not upon Jehovah?
For among my people are found wicked men: they watch, as fowlers lie in wait; they set a trap, they catch men.
As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxed rich.
They are waxed fat, they shine: yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness; they plead not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have devoured souls; they take treasure and precious things; they have made her widows many in the midst thereof.
Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.
And her prophets have daubed for them with {Or, whitewash}untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, when Jehovah hath not spoken.
The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; yea, they have vexed the poor and needy, and have oppressed the sojourner wrongfully.
Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,
saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? and the sabbath, that we may {Hebrew: open.}set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;
that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
Thus saith Jehovah concerning the prophets that make my people to err; that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and whoso putteth not into their mouths, they even {Hebrew: sanctify.}prepare war against him:
For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they {Or, gnaw not the bones on the morrow}leave nothing till the morrow.
- - -
Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out: and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.