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20
1 Drinking a lot of wine or other strong drinks causes people to start fighting;
it is foolish to become drunk/intoxicated.
2 Being afraid of a king when he is angry is like [SIM] being afraid of a lion when it growls/roars;
if you cause the king to become angry, he will execute you.
3 People respect those who stay away from disputes/arguments;
foolish people love to quarrel.
4 If a lazy man does not plow his fields at the right/proper time,
he will look for crops at harvest time, but there will be nothing there.
5 Just as it is difficult to bring up water from a deep well, it is difficult to know what people are thinking,
but someone who has good sense/insight will be able to find out what people are thinking.
6 Many people proclaim that they can be trusted to do what they say that they will do,
but it is very difficult to find [RHQ] someone who can really be trusted.
7 If parents conduct their lives as they should,
God blesses their children (OR, their children are very happy/fortunate).
8 A king who sits on his throne to judge people
can easily [MTY] find out what things that people have done are good and what things are evil.
9 There is no one [RHQ] who can truthfully say, “I do not know of any wrong things that I have done;
I have ◄gotten rid of all my sinful behavior/quit doing what is sinful►.”
10 Yahweh detests people who use weights that are not right
and measures that are not correct.
11 Even children show by what they do whether they are good or not;
they show whether ◄what they do/their behavior► is honest and right or not.
12 Two of the things that Yahweh has created for us
are ears to hear things and eyes to see things.
13 If you want to sleep all the time, you will become poor;
if you stay awake and work, you will have plenty of food.
14 People look at things that they are about to buy, and in order to get it for a lower price sometimes they say, “◄It is no good/It is poor quality►,”
but after they buy it, they go and boast about having bought it for a cheap price.
15 Gold and precious stones are valuable,
but wise words [MTY] are more valuable.
16 If you foolishly promise to a stranger that you will pay what he owes if he is unable to pay it [DOU],
you deserve to have someone take your coat from you.
17 People may think that food that they acquire by doing what is dishonest will taste very good,
but later they will not enjoy what they have done anymore than they would enjoy eating gravel/sand.
18 When people give you good advice, if you do what they suggest, your plans will succeed;
so be sure to get good advice from wise people before you start fighting a war.
19 Those who go around telling gossip are always telling secrets to others;
so stay away from people who foolishly talk too much.
20 If someone curses his father or his mother,
his life will be ended, just like a lamp is extinguished.
21 If you very quickly take the property that your parents promise will be yours after they die,
you will not receive any good/blessing from it.
22 Do not say, “I will do evil to those who do evil to me;”
wait for Yahweh to do something about it, and he will ◄help you/ do what is right►.
23 Yahweh detests those who use dishonest scales
and weights that are not accurate/correct.
24 Yahweh is the one who has decided what will happen to us,
so ◄how can we ‘understand/know’ what will happen before it happens?/we humans certainly cannot ‘understand/know’ what will happen before it happens.► [RHQ]
25 You should think carefully before you solemnly promise to dedicate something to God,
because later you might be sorry you have promised to do it.
26 Wise kings find out [MET] which people have done what is wrong,
and they punish them very severely [IDI].
27 Our consciences are like lamps that Yahweh has given to us to enable us to know what is in our inner beings [MET];
they reveal what is hidden deep in our ◄minds/inner beings►.
28 Kings will continue to rule as long as they faithfully love their people and are loyal to them
and as long as they rule righteously/fairly.
29 We honor/admire young people because they are strong,
but we respect [MTY] old people more because they are wise.
30 When we are beaten or whipped, it can cause us to quit doing what is evil in our lives;
when someone wounds us by punishing us, it can cause our behavior to become good.

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© 2008-2016 Ellis W. Deibler, Jr.