1. Whoever does this grows no richer;those who waste the little they have will be stripped bare.
2. Wine and women make the heart lustful,and the companion of prostitutes becomes reckless.
3. Rottenness and worms will possess him,and the reckless will be snatched away.
4. Whoever trusts others too quickly has a shallow mind,and those who sin wrong themselves.
5. Whoever gloats over evil will be destroyed,
6. and whoever repeats gossip has no sense.
7. Never repeat gossip,and no one will reproach you.
8. Tell nothing to friend or foe;and unless it be a sin for you, do not reveal a thing.
9. For someone may have heard you and watched you,and in time come to hate you.
10. Let anything you hear die with you;never fear, it will not make you burst!
11. Having heard something, the fool goes into labor,like a woman giving birth to a child.
12. Like an arrow stuck in a fool’s thigh,so is gossip in the belly of a fool.
13. Admonish your friend—he may not have done it;and if he did, that he may not do it again.
14. Admonish your neighbor—he may not have said it;and if he did, that he may not say it again.