13-14. Eat honey, dear child—it’s good for you—and delicacies that melt in your mouth.Likewise knowledge,and wisdom for your soul—Get that and your future’s secured,your hope is on solid rock.
15-16. Don’t interfere with good people’s lives;don’t try to get the best of them.No matter how many times you trip them up,God-loyal people don’t stay down long;Soon they’re up on their feet,while the wicked end up flat on their faces.
17-18. Don’t laugh when your enemy falls;don’t crow over his collapse.God might see, and become very provoked,and then take pity on his plight.
19-20. Don’t bother your head with braggartsor wish you could succeed like the wicked.Those people have no future at all;they’re headed down a dead-end street.
21-22. Fear God, dear child—respect your leaders;don’t be defiant or mutinous.Without warning your life can turn upside down,and who knows how or when it might happen?
23. It’s wrong, very wrong,to go along with injustice.
24-25. Whoever whitewashes the wickedgets a black mark in the history books,But whoever exposes the wickedwill be thanked and rewarded.
26. An honest answeris like a warm hug.
27. First plant your fields;then build your barn.
28-29. Don’t talk about your neighbors behind their backs—no slander or gossip, please.Don’t say to anyone, “I’ll get back at you for what you did to me.I’ll make you pay for what you did!”
30-34. One day I walked by the field of an old lazybones,and then passed the vineyard of a lout;They were overgrown with weeds,thick with thistles, all the fences broken down.I took a long look and pondered what I saw;the fields preached me a sermon and I listened:“A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there,sit back, take it easy—do you know what comes next?Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life,with poverty as your permanent houseguest!”