Chapter 4

  Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend that you may know prudence.  

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  I will give you a good gift, forsake not my law.  

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  For I also was my father's son, tender and as an only son in the sight of my mother:  

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  And he taught me, and said: Let thy heart receive my words, keep my commandments, and thou shalt live.  

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  Get wisdom, get prudence: forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth.  

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  Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee: love her, and she shall preserve thee.  

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  The beginning of wisdom, get wisdom, and with all thy possession purchase prudence.  

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  Take hold on her, and she shall exalt thee: thou shalt be glorified by her, when thou shalt embrace her.  

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  She shall give to thy head increase of graces, and protect thee with a noble crown.  

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  Hear, O my son, and receive my words, that years of life may be multiplied to thee.  

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  I will shew thee the way of wisdom, I will lead thee by the paths of equity:  

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  Which when thou shalt have entered, thy steps shall not be straitened, and when thou runnest thou shalt not meet a stumblingblock.  

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  Take hold on instruction, leave it not: keep it, because it is thy life.  

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  Be not delighted in the paths of the wicked, neither let the way of evil men please thee.  

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  Flee from it, pass not by it: go aside, and forsake it.  

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  For they sleep not except they have done evil: and their sleep is taken away unless they have made some to fall.  

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  They eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of iniquity.  

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  But the path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forwards and increaseth even to perfect day.  

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  The way of the wicked is darksome: they know not where they fall.  

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  My son, hearken to my words, and incline thy ear to my sayings.  

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  Let them not depart from thy eyes, keep them in the midst of thy heart:  

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  For they are life to those that find them, and health to all flesh.  

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  With all watchfulness keep thy heart, because life issueth out from it.  

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  Remove from thee a froward mouth, and let detracting lips be far from thee.  

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  Let thy eyes look straight on, and let thy eyelids go before thy steps.  

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  Make straight the path for thy feet, and all thy ways shall be established.  

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  Decline not to the right hand, nor to the left: turn away thy foot from evil. For the Lord knoweth the ways that are on the right hand: but those are perverse which are on the left hand. But he will make thy courses straight, he will bring forward thy ways in peace.  

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