¹ O Lord, Father and Ruler of my life, do not abandon me to their counsel, and let me not fall because of them!

² Who will set whips over my thoughts and the discipline of wisdom over my heart, that they may not spare me in my errors of ignorance and that it may not pass over my sins;

³ in order that my ignorant deeds may not be multi plied and my sins may not abound, so that I fall before my adversaries, and my enemy rejoices over me?

⁴ O Lord, Father and God of my life, do not give me haughty eyes

⁵ and remove from me all covetousness.

⁶ Let neither gluttony nor lust overcome me and do not surrender me to a shameless soul.

Discipline of the Tongue

⁷ Listen, my children, to instruction concerning speech; the one who observes it will never be caught.

⁸ The sinner is overtaken through his lips, the reviler and the arrogant are tripped by them.

⁹ Do not accustom your mouth to oaths and do not habitually utter the name of the Holy One;

¹⁰ for as a servant who is continually interrogated will not lack bruises, so also the man who always swears and utters the name will not be cleansed from sin.

¹¹ A man who swears many oaths will be filled with iniquity, and the scourge will not leave his house; if he offends, his sin remains on him, and if he disregards it, he sins doubly; if he has sworn needlessly, he will not be justified, for his house will be filled with calamities.

Foul Language

¹² There is an utterance that is comparable to death; may it never be found in the inheritance of Jacob! For all these errors will be far from the godly, and they will not wallow in sins.

¹³ Do not accustom your mouth to lewd vulgarity, for it involves sinful speech.

¹⁴ Remember your father and mother when you sit in council among the great; lest you be forgetful in their presence and be deemed a fool on account of your habits; then you will wish that you had never been born, and you will curse the day of your birth.

¹⁵ A man accustomed to use insulting words will never become disciplined all his days.

Sexual Sins

¹⁶ Two sorts of people multiply sins, and a third incurs wrath. The soul heated like a burning fire will surely never be quenched until it is consumed; a person who has sexual intercourse with his near of kin will never cease until the fire burns him up.

¹⁷ To a sexually immoral person all bread tastes sweet; he will never cease until he dies.

¹⁸ A person who breaks his marriage vows says to himself, “Who sees me? Darkness surrounds me, and the walls hide me, and no one sees me. Why should I fear? The Most High will surely not remember my sins.”

¹⁹ His fear is confined to the eyes of human beings, and he does not realize that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun; they look upon all the ways of people and peer into the hidden places.

²⁰ Before the universe was created, it was known to him; so it was also after it was finished.

²¹ This person will be punished in the streets of the city, and where he does not expect it, he will be seized.

²² So it is also with a woman who leaves her husband and provides an heir by a stranger.

²³ For first of all, she has disobeyed the law of the Most High; second, she has committed an offence against her husband; and third, she has committed adultery through illicit sexual encounters and brought forth children by another man.

²⁴ She herself will be brought before the assembly, and punishment will fall on her children. 

²⁵ Her children will not take root, and her branches will not bear fruit.

²⁶ She will leave her memory for a curse, and her disgrace will not be blotted out.

²⁷ Those who survive her will recognize that nothing is better than the fear of the Lord, and nothing sweeter than to heed the commandments of the Lord.