¹Wine is a mocker,

And strong drink is riotous,

And none who go astray with it

Become wise.

²Fear of a king is like the growling of a young lion;

He who takes liberties with him

Sins against himself.

³Honour to the man who ceases from strife,

But every fool flares up.

⁴From autumn on, the lazy man will not plough,

Then at harvest time he begs

And has nothing.

⁵Counsel in a man's heart is like deep water,

And a man of understanding draws on it.

⁶The majority of men will proclaim their own generosity,

But as for a faithful man,

Who can find him?

⁷The righteous man walks in his integrity;

Happy are his sons after him.

⁸A king sitting in his judgment seat

Winnows out everything that in his eyes is evil.

⁹Who can say,

“I have purified my heart;

I am clear of my sin”?

¹⁰One weight for one,

And another weight for another,

One ephah for one,

And another ephah for another

– They are both an abomination to the Lord.

¹¹Even a boy is known by his deeds

– Whether his behaviour is pure

And whether it is upright.

¹²A hearing ear and a seeing eye

– The Lord assuredly made both of them.

¹³Do not love sleep,

So that you do not become destitute.

Open your eyes

And be satiated with bread.

¹⁴“It is poor quality, poor quality”,

Says the buyer.

And then he goes his way,

And then boasts about it.

¹⁵Gold and an abundance of red corals have a place,

But knowledgeable lips are a precious instrument.

¹⁶“Take his clothing,

For he became security to a stranger,

And bind him up,

For pledging to foreigners.”

¹⁷Dishonestly obtained bread is sweet to a man,

But afterwards his mouth becomes full of gravel.

¹⁸Plans undertaken with counsel will be established,

So wage war with shrewd deliberations.

¹⁹He who goes around gossiping

Reveals a secret,

So do not involve yourself

With one of wide open lips.

²⁰As for him who curses his father or mother,

His lamp will go out in pitch black darkness.

²¹An inheritance may be avariciously obtained at first,

But then its final state will not be blessed.

²³One weight for one, and another weight for another,

Is an abomination to the Lord,

And false scales are not good.

²⁴Man's steps are received from the Lord.

But as for man,

What does he understand of his way?

²⁵It is a snare to a man

To rashly say anything holy,

And after the vows,

To reconsider.

²⁶A wise king winnows out the wicked,

And drives the threshing wheel back over them.

²⁷The spirit of man is the Lord's lamp,

Searching all the inner parts of the belly.

²⁸Kindness and truth protect the king,

And it is with kindness

That he sustains his throne.

²⁹The glory of young men is their strength,

And the dignity of the old is their grey hair.

³⁰Weals from wounding are a cleansing,

In a baneful way,

And beatings cleanse the inner parts of the belly.

Reference(s) in Chapter 20: v.22 ↔ Romans 12:19.