Exhortations to Obedience

3¹ My son, don’t forget my teaching;
but let your heart keep my commandments: ² for length of days, and years of life,
and peace, will they add to you. ³ Don’t let kindness and truth forsake you.
Bind them around your neck.
Write them on the tablet of your heart. ⁴ So you will find favor,
and good understanding in the sight of God and man. ⁵ Trust in Yahweh with all your heart,
and don’t lean on your own understanding. ⁶ In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

⁷ Don’t be wise in your own eyes.
Fear Yahweh, and depart from evil. ⁸ It will be health to your body,
and nourishment to your bones. ⁹ Honor Yahweh with your substance,
with the first fruits of all your increase: ¹⁰ so your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will overflow with new wine. ¹¹ My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline,
neither be weary of his reproof: ¹² for whom Yahweh loves, he reproves;
even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights.

¹³ Happy is the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gets understanding. ¹⁴ For her good profit is better than getting silver,
and her return is better than fine gold. ¹⁵ She is more precious than rubies.
None of the things you can desire are to be compared to her. ¹⁶ Length of days is in her right hand.
In her left hand are riches and honor. ¹⁷ Her ways are ways of pleasantness.
All her paths are peace. ¹⁸ She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her.
Happy is everyone who retains her. ¹⁹ By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth.
By understanding, he established the heavens. ²⁰ By his knowledge, the depths were broken up,
and the skies drop down the dew.

²¹ My son, let them not depart from your eyes.
Keep sound wisdom and discretion: ²² so they will be life to your soul,
and grace for your neck. ²³ Then you shall walk in your way securely.
Your foot won’t stumble. ²⁴ When you lie down, you will not be afraid.
Yes, you will lie down, and your sleep will be sweet. ²⁵ Don’t be afraid of sudden fear,
neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it comes: ²⁶ for Yahweh will be your confidence,
and will keep your foot from being taken.

²⁷ Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in the power of your hand to do it. ²⁸ Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again;
tomorrow I will give it to you,”
when you have it by you. ²⁹ Don’t devise evil against your neighbor,
seeing he dwells securely by you. ³⁰ Don’t strive with a man without cause,
if he has done you no harm. ³¹ Don’t envy the man of violence.
Choose none of his ways. ³² For the perverse is an abomination to Yahweh,
but his friendship is with the upright. ³³ Yahweh’s curse is in the house of the wicked,
but he blesses the habitation of the righteous. ³⁴ Surely he mocks the mockers,
but he gives grace to the humble. ³⁵ The wise will inherit glory,
but shame will be the promotion of fools.

The Beneficence of Wisdom

4¹ Listen, sons, to a father’s instruction.
Pay attention and know understanding; ² for I give you sound learning.
Don’t forsake my law. ³ For I was a son to my father,
tender and an only child in the sight of my mother. ⁴ He taught me, and said to me:
“Let your heart retain my words.
Keep my commandments, and live. ⁵ Get wisdom.
Get understanding.
Don’t forget, neither swerve from the words of my mouth. ⁶ Don’t forsake her, and she will preserve you.
Love her, and she will keep you. ⁷ Wisdom is supreme.
Get wisdom.
Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding. ⁸ Esteem her, and she will exalt you.
She will bring you to honor, when you embrace her. ⁹ She will give to your head a garland of grace.
She will deliver a crown of splendor to you.” ¹⁰ Listen, my son, and receive my sayings.
The years of your life will be many. ¹¹ I have taught you in the way of wisdom.
I have led you in straight paths. ¹² When you go, your steps will not be hampered.
When you run, you will not stumble. ¹³ Take firm hold of instruction.
Don’t let her go.
Keep her, for she is your life.

¹⁴ Don’t enter into the path of the wicked.
Don’t walk in the way of evil men. ¹⁵ Avoid it, and don’t pass by it.
Turn from it, and pass on. ¹⁶ For they don’t sleep, unless they do evil.
Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall. ¹⁷ For they eat the bread of wickedness,
and drink the wine of violence. ¹⁸ But the path of the righteous is like the dawning light,
that shines more and more until the perfect day. ¹⁹ The way of the wicked is like darkness.
They don’t know what they stumble over.

²⁰ My son, attend to my words.
Turn your ear to my sayings. ²¹ Let them not depart from your eyes.
Keep them in the midst of your heart. ²² For they are life to those who find them,
and health to their whole body. ²³ Keep your heart with all diligence,
for out of it is the wellspring of life. ²⁴ Put away from yourself a perverse mouth.
Put corrupt lips far from you. ²⁵ Let your eyes look straight ahead.
Fix your gaze directly before you. ²⁶ Make the path of your feet level.
Let all of your ways be established. ²⁷ Don’t turn to the right hand nor to the left.
Remove your foot from evil.

Warning against Unchastity

5¹ My son, pay attention to my wisdom.
Turn your ear to my understanding: ² that you may maintain discretion,
that your lips may preserve knowledge. ³ For the lips of an adulteress drip honey.
Her mouth is smoother than oil, ⁴ But in the end she is as bitter as wormwood,
and as sharp as a two-edged sword. ⁵ Her feet go down to death.
Her steps lead straight to Sheol. ⁶ She gives no thought to the way of life.
Her ways are crooked, and she doesn’t know it. ⁷ Now therefore, my sons, listen to me.
Don’t depart from the words of my mouth. ⁸ Remove your way far from her.
Don’t come near the door of her house, ⁹ lest you give your honor to others,
and your years to the cruel one; ¹⁰ lest strangers feast on your wealth,
and your labors enrich another man’s house. ¹¹ You will groan at your latter end,
when your flesh and your body are consumed, ¹² and say, “How I have hated instruction,
and my heart despised reproof; ¹³ neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers,
nor turned my ear to those who instructed me! ¹⁴ I have come to the brink of utter ruin,
in the midst of the gathered assembly.”

¹⁵ Drink water out of your own cistern,
running water out of your own well. ¹⁶ Should your springs overflow in the streets,
streams of water in the public squares? ¹⁷ Let them be for yourself alone,
not for strangers with you. ¹⁸ Let your spring be blessed.
Rejoice in the wife of your youth. ¹⁹ A loving doe and a graceful deer—
let her breasts satisfy you at all times.
Be captivated always with her love. ²⁰ For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress?
Why embrace the bosom of another? ²¹ For the ways of man are before the eyes of Yahweh.
He examines all his paths. ²² The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him.
The cords of his sin hold him firmly. ²³ He will die for lack of instruction.
In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray.

Salutation

1¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: ² Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul's Affliction

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; ⁴ who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ. ⁶ But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.

⁷ Our hope for you is steadfast, knowing that, since you are partakers of the sufferings, so also are you of the comfort. ⁸ For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, [1] concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life. ⁹ Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, ¹⁰ who delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver; on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us; ¹¹ you also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift bestowed on us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on your behalf.

The Postponement of Paul's Visit

¹² For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you. ¹³ For we write no other things to you, than what you read or even acknowledge, and I hope you will acknowledge to the end; ¹⁴ as also you acknowledged us in part, that we are your boasting, even as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.

¹⁵ In this confidence, I was determined to come first to you, that you might have a second benefit; ¹⁶ and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be sent forward by you on my journey to Judea. ¹⁷ When I therefore was thus determined, did I show fickleness? Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be the “Yes, yes” and the “No, no?” ¹⁸ But as God is faithful, our word toward you was not “Yes and no.” ¹⁹ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me, Silvanus, and Timothy, was not “Yes and no,” but in him is “Yes.” ²⁰ For however many are the promises of God, in him is the “Yes.” Therefore also through him is the “Amen,” to the glory of God through us. ²¹ Now he who establishes us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God; ²² who also sealed us, and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts. ²³ But I call God for a witness to my soul, that I didn’t come to Corinth to spare you. ²⁴ Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are fellow workers with you for your joy. For you stand firm in faith.