1. Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God; for to draw nigh to hear is better than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they know not that they do evil.
2. Be not rash with thy month, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
3. For a dream cometh with a multitude of business; and a fool's voice with a multitude of words.
4. When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou vowest.
5. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
6. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
7. For thus it cometh to pass through the multitude of dreams and vanities and many words: but fear thou God.
8. If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for one higher than the high regardeth; and there be higher than they.
9. Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.
10. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this also is vanity.
11. When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what advantage is there to the owner thereof, saving the beholding of them with his eyes?
12. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the fulness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.