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My children, listen to what your father teaches you. Pay attention, and you will have understanding.
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What I am teaching you is good, so remember it all.
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When I was only a little boy, my parents' only son,
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my father would teach me. He would say, "Remember what I say and never forget it. Do as I tell you, and you will live.
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Get wisdom and insight! Do not forget or ignore what I say.
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Do not abandon wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will keep you safe.
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Getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do. Whatever else you get, get insight.
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Love wisdom, and she will make you great. Embrace her, and she will bring you honor.
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She will be your crowning glory."
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Listen to me, my child. Take seriously what I am telling you, and you will live a long life.
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I have taught you wisdom and the right way to live.
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Nothing will stand in your way if you walk wisely, and you will not stumble when you run.
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Always remember what you have learned. Your education is your life---guard it well.
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Do not go where evil people go. Do not follow the example of the wicked.
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Don't do it! Keep away from evil! Refuse it and go on your way.
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Wicked people cannot sleep unless they have done something wrong. They lie awake unless they have hurt someone.
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Wickedness and violence are like food and drink to them.
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The road the righteous travel is like the sunrise, getting brighter and brighter until daylight has come.
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The road of the wicked, however, is dark as night. They fall, but cannot see what they have stumbled over.
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My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen to my words.
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Never let them get away from you. Remember them and keep them in your heart.
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They will give life and health to anyone who understands them.
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Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.
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Never say anything that isn't true. Have nothing to do with lies and misleading words.
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Look straight ahead with honest confidence; don't hang your head in shame.
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Plan carefully what you do, and whatever you do will turn out right.
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Avoid evil and walk straight ahead. Don't go one step off the right way.
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My child, pay attention and listen to my wisdom and insight.
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Then you will know how to behave properly, and your words will show that you have knowledge.
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The lips of another man's wife may be as sweet as honey and her kisses as smooth as olive oil,
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but when it is all over, she leaves you nothing but bitterness and pain.
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She will take you down to the world of the dead; the road she walks is the road to death.
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She does not stay on the road to life; but wanders off, and does not realize what is happening.
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Now listen to me, sons, and never forget what I am saying.
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Keep away from such a woman! Don't even go near her door!
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If you do, others will gain the respect that you once had, and you will die young at the hands of merciless people.
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Yes, strangers will take all your wealth, and what you have worked for will belong to someone else.
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You will lie groaning on your deathbed, your flesh and muscles being eaten away,
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and you will say, "Why would I never learn? Why would I never let anyone correct me?
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I wouldn't listen to my teachers. I paid no attention to them.
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And suddenly I found myself publicly disgraced."
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Be faithful to your own wife and give your love to her alone.
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Children that you have by other women will do you no good.
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Your children should grow up to help you, not strangers.
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So be happy with your wife and find your joy with the woman you married---
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pretty and graceful as a deer. Let her charms keep you happy; let her surround you with her love.
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Son, why should you give your love to another woman? Why should you prefer the charms of another man's wife?
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The LORD sees everything you do. Wherever you go, he is watching.
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The sins of the wicked are a trap. They get caught in the net of their own sin.
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They die because they have no self-control. Their utter stupidity will send them to their graves.
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My child, have you promised to be responsible for someone else's debts?
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Have you been caught by your own words, trapped by your own promises?
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Well then, my child, you are in that person's power, but this is how to get out of it: hurry to him, and beg him to release you.
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Don't let yourself go to sleep or even stop to rest.
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Get out of the trap like a bird or a deer escaping from a hunter.
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Lazy people should learn a lesson from the way ants live.
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They have no leader, chief, or ruler,
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but they store up their food during the summer, getting ready for winter.
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How long is the lazy man going to lie around? When is he ever going to get up?
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"I'll just take a short nap," he says; "I'll fold my hands and rest a while."
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But while he sleeps, poverty will attack him like an armed robber.
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Worthless, wicked people go around telling lies.
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They wink and make gestures to deceive you,
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all the while planning evil in their perverted minds, stirring up trouble everywhere.
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Because of this, disaster will strike them without warning, and they will be fatally wounded.
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There are seven things that the LORD hates and cannot tolerate: A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that kill innocent people, a mind that thinks up wicked plans, feet that hurry off to do evil, a witness who tells one lie after another, and someone who stirs up trouble among friends.
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Son, do what your father tells you and never forget what your mother taught you.
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Keep their words with you always, locked in your heart.
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Their teaching will lead you when you travel, protect you at night, and advise you during the day.
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Their instructions are a shining light; their correction can teach you how to live.
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It can keep you away from bad women, from the seductive words of other men's wives.
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Don't be tempted by their beauty; don't be trapped by their flirting eyes.
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A man can hire a prostitute for the price of a loaf of bread, but adultery will cost him all he has.
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Can you carry fire against your chest without burning your clothes?
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Can you walk on hot coals without burning your feet?
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It is just as dangerous to sleep with another man's wife. Whoever does it will suffer.
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People don't despise a thief if he steals food when he is hungry;
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yet if he is caught, he must pay back seven times more---he must give up everything he has.
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But a man who commits adultery doesn't have any sense. He is just destroying himself.
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He will be dishonored and beaten up; he will be permanently disgraced.
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A husband is never angrier than when he is jealous; his revenge knows no limits.
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He will not accept any payment; no amount of gifts will satisfy his anger.
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There is no condemnation now for those who live in union with Christ Jesus.
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For the law of the Spirit, which brings us life in union with Christ Jesus, has set me free from the law of sin and death.
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What the Law could not do, because human nature was weak, God did. He condemned sin in human nature by sending his own Son, who came with a nature like our sinful nature, to do away with sin.
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God did this so that the righteous demands of the Law might be fully satisfied in us who live according to the Spirit, and not according to human nature.
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Those who live as their human nature tells them to, have their minds controlled by what human nature wants. Those who live as the Spirit tells them to, have their minds controlled by what the Spirit wants.
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To be controlled by human nature results in death; to be controlled by the Spirit results in life and peace.
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And so people become enemies of God when they are controlled by their human nature; for they do not obey God's law, and in fact they cannot obey it.
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Those who obey their human nature cannot please God.
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But you do not live as your human nature tells you to; instead, you live as the Spirit tells you to---if, in fact, God's Spirit lives in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
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But if Christ lives in you, the Spirit is life for you because you have been put right with God, even though your bodies are going to die because of sin.
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If the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from death, lives in you, then he who raised Christ from death will also give life to your mortal bodies by the presence of his Spirit in you.
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So then, my friends, we have an obligation, but it is not to live as our human nature wants us to.
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For if you live according to your human nature, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you put to death your sinful actions, you will live.
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Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children.
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For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, "Father! my Father!"
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God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children.
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Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ's suffering, we will also share his glory.
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I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.
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All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children.
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For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope
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that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God.
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For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth.
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But it is not just creation alone which groans; we who have the Spirit as the first of God's gifts also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us his children and set our whole being free.
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For it was by hope that we were saved; but if we see what we hope for, then it is not really hope. For who of us hopes for something we see?
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But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
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In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express.
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And God, who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will.
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We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose.
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Those whom God had already chosen he also set apart to become like his Son, so that the Son would be the first among many believers.
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And so those whom God set apart, he called; and those he called, he put right with himself, and he shared his glory with them.
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In view of all this, what can we say? If God is for us, who can be against us?
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Certainly not God, who did not even keep back his own Son, but offered him for us all! He gave us his Son---will he not also freely give us all things?
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Who will accuse God's chosen people? God himself declares them not guilty!
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Who, then, will condemn them? Not Christ Jesus, who died, or rather, who was raised to life and is at the right side of God, pleading with him for us!
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Who, then, can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble do it, or hardship or persecution or hunger or poverty or danger or death?
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As the scripture says, "For your sake we are in danger of death at all times; we are treated like sheep that are going to be slaughtered."
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No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us!
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For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future,
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neither the world above nor the world below---there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.
