Proverbs 5

AVOID SEDUCTION
My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
listen closely to my understanding
2 so that you may maintain discretion
and your lips safeguard knowledge.
3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey
and her words are smoother than oil,
4 in the end she’s as bitter as wormwood
and as sharp as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps head straight for Sheol.
6 She doesn’t consider the path of life;
she doesn’t know that her ways are unstable.
7 So now, sons, listen to me,
and don’t turn away from the words from my mouth.
8 Keep your way far from her.
Don’t go near the door of her house.
9 Otherwise, you will give up your vitality to others
and your years to someone cruel;
10 strangers will drain your resources,
and your hard-earned pay will end up in a foreigner’s house.
11 At the end of your life, you will lament
when your physical body has been consumed,
12 and you will say, “How I hated discipline,
and how my heart despised correction.
13 I didn’t obey my teachers
or listen closely to my instructors.
14 I am on the verge of complete ruin
before the entire community.”
ENJOY MARRIAGE
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
water flowing from your own well.
16 Should your springs flow in the streets,
streams in the public squares?
17 They should be for you alone
and not for you to share with strangers.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and take pleasure in the wife of your youth.
19 A loving deer, a graceful doe —
let her breasts always satisfy you;
be lost in her love forever.
20 Why, my son, would you lose yourself
with a forbidden woman
or embrace a wayward woman?
21 For a man’s ways are before the Lord’s eyes,
and he considers all his paths.
22 A wicked man’s iniquities will trap him;
he will become tangled in the ropes of his own sin.
23 He will die because there is no discipline,
and be lost because of his great stupidity.

Proverbs 6

FINANCIAL ENTANGLEMENTS
My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor
or entered into an agreement with a stranger,
2 you have been snared by the words of your mouth —
trapped by the words from your mouth.
3 Do this, then, my son, and free yourself,
for you have put yourself in your neighbor’s power:
Go, humble yourself, and plead with your neighbor.
4 Don’t give sleep to your eyes
or slumber to your eyelids.
5 Escape like a gazelle from a hunter,
like a bird from a hunter’s trap.
LAZINESS
6 Go to the ant, you slacker!
Observe its ways and become wise.
7 Without leader, administrator, or ruler,
8 it prepares its provisions in summer;
it gathers its food during harvest.
9 How long will you stay in bed, you slacker?
When will you get up from your sleep?
10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the arms to rest,
11 and your poverty will come like a robber,
your need, like a bandit.
THE MALICIOUS MAN
12 A worthless person, a wicked man
goes around speaking dishonestly,
13 winking his eyes, signaling with his feet,
and gesturing with his fingers.
14 He always plots evil with perversity in his heart;
he stirs up trouble.
15 Therefore calamity will strike him suddenly;
he will be shattered instantly, beyond recovery.
WHAT THE LORD HATES
16 The Lord hates six things;
in fact, seven are detestable to him:
17 arrogant eyes, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that plots wicked schemes,
feet eager to run to evil,
19 a lying witness who gives false testimony,
and one who stirs up trouble among brothers.
WARNING AGAINST ADULTERY
20 My son, keep your father’s command,
and don’t reject your mother’s teaching.
21 Always bind them to your heart;
tie them around your neck.
22 When you walk here and there, they will guide you;
when you lie down, they will watch over you;
when you wake up, they will talk to you.
23 For a command is a lamp, teaching is a light,
and corrective discipline is the way to life.
24 They will protect you from an evil woman,
from the flattering tongue of a wayward woman.
25 Don’t lust in your heart for her beauty
or let her captivate you with her eyelashes.
26 For a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread,
but the wife of another man goes after a precious life.
27 Can a man embrace fire
and his clothes not be burned?
28 Can a man walk on burning coals
without scorching his feet?
29 So it is with the one who sleeps with
another man’s wife;
no one who touches her will go unpunished.
30 People don’t despise the thief if he steals
to satisfy himself when he is hungry.
31 Still, if caught, he must pay seven times as much;
he must give up all the wealth in his house.
32 The one who commits adultery lacks sense;
whoever does so destroys himself.
33 He will get a beating and dishonor,
and his disgrace will never be removed.
34 For jealousy enrages a husband,
and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge.
35 He will not be appeased by anything
or be persuaded by lavish bribes.

1 Corinthians 13

LOVE: THE SUPERIOR WAY
If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, 5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. 13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love ​— ​but the greatest of these is love.

— 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (CSB)