¹ Better a mouthful of dry bread with peace than a house filled with quarrelsome sacrifices.

² A shrewd servant comes off better than an unworthy child, he will share the inheritance with the brothers.

³ A furnace for silver, a foundry for gold, but Yahweh for the testing of hearts!

⁴ An evil-doer pays heed to malicious talk, a liar listens to a slanderous tongue.

⁵ To mock the poor is to insult the Creator, no one who laughs at distress will go unpunished.

⁶ The crown of the aged is their children's children; the children's glory is their father.

⁷ Fine words do not become the foolish, false words become a prince still less.

⁸ A gift works like a talisman for one who holds it: it brings prosperity at every turn.

⁹ Whoever covers an offence promotes love, whoever again raises the matter divides friends.

¹⁰ A reproof makes more impression on a person of understanding than a hundred strokes on a fool.

¹¹ The wicked person thinks of nothing but rebellion, but a cruel messenger will be sent to such a one.

¹² Rather come on a bear robbed of her cubs than on a fool in his folly.

¹³ Disaster will never be far from the house of one who returns evil for good.

¹⁴ As well unleash a flood as start a dispute; desist before the quarrel breaks out.

¹⁵ To absolve the guilty and condemn the upright, both alike are abhorrent to Yahweh.

¹⁶ What good is money in the hand of a fool? To buy wisdom with it? The desire is not there.

¹⁷ A friend is a friend at all times, it is for adversity that a brother is born.

¹⁸ Whoever offers guarantees lacks sense and goes surety for a neighbour.

¹⁹ The double-dealer loves sin, the proud courts ruin.

²⁰ The tortuous of heart finds no happiness, the perverse of speech falls into misery.

²¹ He who fathers a stupid child does so to his sorrow, the father of a fool knows no joy.

²² A glad heart is excellent medicine, a depressed spirit wastes the bones away.

²³ Under cover of his cloak a bad man takes a gift to pervert the course of justice.

²⁴ The intelligent has wisdom there before him, but the eyes of a fool range to the ends of the earth.

²⁵ A foolish child is a father's sorrow, and the grief of her who gave the child birth.

²⁶ To fine the upright is indeed a crime, to strike the noble is an injustice.

²⁷ Whoever can control the tongue knows what knowledge is, someone of understanding keeps a cool temper.

²⁸ If the fool holds his tongue, he may pass for wise; if he seals his lips, he may pass for intelligent.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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