Anonymous (Septuagint) · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| Lord, father and master of my life, do not abandon me to their counsel, do not let me fall by them.
2| Who will place a whip over my reasoning, and over my heart the correction that wisdom brings, so that these will show me no mercy for my failings, and my sins will not go overlooked?
3| lest my failings multiply, and my sins increase, and I fall before my adversaries, and my enemy gloat over me?
4| Lord, father and God of my life, do not give me haughty eyes,
5| and turn desire away from me;
6| let no appetite of the belly and no lust overtake me, and do not hand me over to a shameless soul.
7| Discipline of the mouth. Hear the discipline of the mouth, children, and whoever keeps watch over it will not be caught; by his own lips
8| the sinner and the slanderer and the arrogant man will be exposed; they will be tripped up by them.
9| Do not accustom your mouth to oaths, and do not grow used to naming the Holy One.
10| For just as a household servant under constant scrutiny will not go without bruises, so too the one who swears and invokes the Name continually will never be cleansed from sin.
11| A man given to much swearing will be filled with lawlessness, and the scourge will not depart from his house; if he offends, his sin is on him, and if he disregards it, he has sinned doubly; and if he swore falsely, he will not be justified, for his house will be filled with calamities.
12| There is a manner of speech clothed in death; may it never be found in the inheritance of Jacob; for all these things will stay far from the godly, and they will not wallow in sins.
13| Do not accustom your mouth to coarse, undisciplined talk, for it contains sinful speech.
14| Remember your father and mother, for you sit among the great; do not forget yourself before them and, through your own habit, play the fool, wishing you had never been born and cursing the day of your birth.
15| A man accustomed to words of reproach will never be disciplined all his days.
16| Two kinds of people multiply sin, and a third brings down wrath: a soul hot as a burning fire, which will not be quenched until it is consumed; a man given to sexual immorality in the body of his flesh, who will not stop until the fire he has kindled burns out.
17| To the immoral man every bread is sweet; he will not tire until he dies.
18| A man who strays from his own bed, saying to himself, "Who sees me? Darkness surrounds me, and the walls hide me, and no one sees me — why should I be careful? The Most High will keep no record of my wrongdoing."
19| Yet what he fears is only human eyes, and he does not know that the Lord's gaze outshines the sun ten thousand times over, watching every path of mankind and observing even its hidden places.
20| Before all things were created, they were known to him; so it is also after they are completed.
21| This man will face punishment out in the city's open squares, and where he least expects it, he will be seized.
22| So too the woman who abandons her husband and provides an heir by another man;
23| for first she broke the law set by the Most High, and second she wronged her own husband, and third she committed adultery through fornication, bringing forth children by another man.
24| This woman will be brought out before the assembly, and there will be a reckoning upon her children;
25| her children will not take root, and her branches will bear no fruit;
26| she will leave her memory behind for a curse, and her disgrace will never be blotted out;
27| and those left behind will come to know that nothing surpasses the fear of the Lord, and nothing is sweeter than keeping the Lord's commandments.