1. MY SON, if you have become security for your neighbor, if you have given your pledge for a stranger or another,
2. You are snared with the words of your lips, you are caught by the speech of your mouth.
3. Do this now [at once and earnestly], my son, and deliver yourself when you have put yourself into the power of your neighbor; go, bestir and humble yourself, and beg your neighbor [to pay his debt and thereby release you].
4. Give not [unnecessary] sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids;
5. Deliver yourself, as a roe or gazelle from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
6. Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise!–[Job 12:7.]
7. Which, having no chief, overseer, or ruler,
8. Provides her food in the summer and gathers her supplies in the harvest.
9. How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep? [Prov. 24:33, 34.]
10. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to lie down and sleep–
11. So will your poverty come like a robber or one who travels [with slowly but surely approaching steps] and your want like an armed man [making you helpless]. [Prov. 10:4; 13:4; 20:4.]
12. A worthless person, a wicked man, is he who goes about with a perverse (contrary, wayward) mouth.
13. He winks with his eyes, he speaks by shuffling or tapping with his feet, he makes signs [to mislead and deceive] and teaches with his fingers.
14. Willful and contrary in his heart, he devises trouble, vexation, and evil continually; he lets loose discord and sows it.
15. Therefore upon him shall the crushing weight of calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken, and that without remedy.
16. These six things the Lord hates, indeed, seven are an abomination to Him:
17. A proud look [the spirit that makes one overestimate himself and underestimate others], a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, [Ps. 120:2, 3.]