Ecclesiasticus 9

¹Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosom, lest she shew upon thee the malice of wicked doctrine.

²Give not to a woman the power of thy soul, lest she go in thy strength, and thou be confounded.

³Look not upon a woman that is desirous of many: lest perhaps thou fall into her snares.

⁴With her that is a dancer be not daily conversant, nor hear her, lest perhaps thou perish in her efficacy.

⁵Behold not a virgin, lest perhaps thou be scandalized in her beauty.

⁶Give not thy soul to harlots in any point: lest thou destroy thyself, and thine inheritance.

⁷Look not round about in the ways of the city, nor wander up and down in the streets thereof.

⁸Turn away thy face from a trimmed woman, and gaze not about upon another's beauty.

⁹By the beauty of a woman many have perished: and hereby concupiscence is inflamed as a fire.

¹⁰Every woman, that is an harlot, shall be trodden upon as dung in the way.

¹¹Many having admired the beauty of another man's wife, have become reprobate, for her communication burneth as fire.

¹²Sit not at all with another man's wife, nor repose upon the bed with her:

¹³and strive not with her at the wine, lest perhaps thy heart decline toward her, & with thy blood thou fall into perdition.

¹⁴Forsake not an old friend: for the new will not be like to him.

¹⁵Anew friend, is as new wine: it shall wax old, and thou shalt drink it with sweetness.

¹⁶Do not zealously desire the glory and the riches of a sinner: for thou knowest not what his subversion shall be.

¹⁷Let not the injury of the unjust please thee, knowing that even to hell the impious shall not please.

¹⁸Be far from the man that hath power to kill, and thou shalt not suspect the fear of death.

¹⁹And if thou come to him, commit nothing, lest perhaps he take away thy life.

²⁰Know it to be communication with death; because thou shalt go in the midst of snares, and shalt walk upon the weapons of the sorrowful.

²¹According to thy power beware thee of thy neighbour, and treat with the wise and prudent.

²²Let just men be thy guests, and let thy gloriation be in the fear of God,

²³and let the cogitation of God be in thy understanding, & all thine enarration in the precepts of the Highest.

²⁴Works shall be praised in the hands of artificers, and the Prince of the people in the wisdom of his speech, but the word of the ancients in the sense.

²⁵Aman full of tongue is terrible in his city, and he that is rash in his word shall be odious.