Chapter 9

Great prudence is required in conversation between men and women. ℣.14 Esteem old friends. ℣.16 Emulate not sinners. ℣.18 Avoid the company of malicious. ℣.21 Consult with the prudent, having God ever before thine eyes.

1. 1

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

2. 2

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

3. 3

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

4. 4

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

5. 5

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

6. 6

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

7. 7

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

8. 8

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

9. 9

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

10. 10

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

11. 11

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

12. 12

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

13. 13

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

14. 14

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

15. 15

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

16. 16

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

17. 17

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

18. 18

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

19. 19

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

20. 20

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

21. 21

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

22. 22

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

23. 23

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

24. 24

    Works 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.

25. 25

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