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 4,19 Spr 4,19
He will keep the feet of his {Or, godly ones Another reading is, holy one.}holy ones;But the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness;For by strength shall no man prevail.
They meet with darkness in the day-time,And grope at noonday as in the night.
They grope in the dark without light;And he maketh them to {Hebrew: wander.}stagger like a drunken man.
Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out,And the {Or, flame}spark of his fire shall not shine.
The light shall be dark in his tent,And his lamp {Or, beside}above him shall be put out.
He shall be driven from light into darkness,And chased out of the world.
Therefore is justice far from us, neither doth righteousness overtake us: we look for light, but, behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity.
We grope for the wall like the blind; yea, we grope as they that have no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight; {Or, we are in dark places like the dead}among them that are lusty we are as dead men.
Give glory to Jehovah your God, before {Or, it grow dark}he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the {Hebrew: mountains of twilight.}dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into {Or, deep darkness}the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.
Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil upon them, {Or, in the year}even the year of their visitation, saith Jehovah.
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Let them alone: they are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit.
Jesus therefore said unto them, Yet a little while is the light {Or, in}among you. Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not: and he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.