1 A name is preferable to great riches.
Favour is better than silver and gold.
2 The rich and the poor meet together –
𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 is the Maker of them all.
3 A clever one foresees evil and hides himself,
But the simple go on and are punished.
4 The reward of humility is the reverence of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄,
Riches, and esteem and ḥai.
5 Thorns, snares are in the way of the perverse;
He who guards his ḥai keeps far away from them.
6 Train up a child in the way he should go,
Even when he is old he turns not away from it.
7 The rich rules over the poor,
And the borrower is slave to the lender.
8 He who sows unrighteousness reaps trouble,
And the rod of his wrath perishes.
9 He who has a good eye is baruḵ,
For he gives of his bread to the poor.
10 Cast out the scoffer and strife goes out,
And contention and shame cease.
11 He who loves cleanness of heart,
Whose speech is pleasant,
A sovereign is his friend.
12 The eyes of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 shall watch over knowledge,
But He overthrows the words of the treacherous.
13 The lazy one says, “There is a lion outside!
I am going to be killed in the streets!”
14 The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit;
The one denounced by 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 falls in there.
15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child;
The rod of discipline drives it far him.
16 One oppresses the poor to increase,
Another gives to the rich, only to come to poverty.
17 Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise,
And apply your heart to my knowledge;
18 For they are pleasant
If you guard them within you;
Let all of them be ready on your lips.
19 That your trust might be in 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄,
I caused you to know today, even you:
20 Have I not previously written to you
Of counsels and knowledge,
21 To cause you to know the certainty of the words of truth,
To return words of truth to those who send to you?
22 Do not rob the poor because he is poor,
And oppress not the afflicted at the gate.
23 For 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 pleads their cause,
And shall plunder those who plunder them.
24 Make no friendship with one given to wrath,
And do not go with a man of rage,
25 Lest you learn his ways,
And find yourself ensnared.
26 Do not be one of those who shakes hands in a pledge,
One of those who are guarantors for debts.
27 If you do not have the means to pay,
Why should he take away your bed from under you?
28 Do not move the ancient boundary
Which your fathers have established.
29 Do you see a man who is skilled in his work?
He stands before sovereigns,
He does not stand before obscure ones.