| Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin. | He who guards his mouth guards his soul. One who opens wide his lips comes to ruin. |
| The wise in heart accept commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin. | The wise in heart accept commandments, but a chattering fool will fall. |
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| One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. | A man of many companions may be ruined, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. |
| Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. | But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. |
| Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. | Return, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions, so iniquity will not be your ruin. |
| The way of the Lord is a refuge for the blameless, but it is the ruin of those who do evil. | The way of Yahweh is a stronghold to the upright, but it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity. |
| The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. | Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but he turns the way of the wicked upside down. |
| Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” | Don’t be deceived! “Evil companionships corrupt good morals.” |
| With their mouths the godless destroy their neighbors, but through knowledge the righteous escape. | With his mouth the godless man destroys his neighbor, but the righteous will be delivered through knowledge. |
| If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. | For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forever more. |
| Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. | Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you! Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. |
