Judaism
Proverbs 5
Text
My son, attend unto my wisdom; Incline thine ear to my understanding;
That thou mayest preserve discretion, And that thy lips may keep knowledge.
For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil;
But her end is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death; Her steps take hold on the nether-world;
Lest she should walk the even path of life, Her ways wander, but she knoweth it not.
Now therefore, O ye children, hearken unto me, And depart not from the words of my mouth.
Remove thy way far from her, And come not nigh the door of her house;
Lest thou give thy vigour unto others, And thy years unto the cruel;
Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, And thy labours be in the house of an alien;
And thou moan, when thine end cometh, When thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
And say: ‘How have I hated instruction, And my heart despised reproof;
Neither have I hearkened to the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
I was well nigh in all evil In the midst of the congregation and assembly.’
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, And running waters out of thine own well.
Let thy springs be dispersed abroad, And courses of water in the streets.
Let them be only thine own, And not strangers’with thee.
Let thy fountain be blessed; And have joy of the wife of thy youth.
A lovely hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; With her love be thou ravished always.
Why then wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, And embrace the bosom of an alien?
For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, And He maketh even all his paths.
His own iniquities shall ensnare the wicked, And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.
He shall die for lack of instruction; And in the greatness of his folly he shall reel.
Text: The Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society (1917), public domain, via Sefaria.
✦ Connected Across Traditions
The Golden Rule
Matthew 7:12
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
Hadith (An-Nawawi 13)
“None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”
Mahabharata 5.1517
“One should never do to another what one regards as injurious to oneself.”
Dhammapada 129 (trans. Bhikkhu Sujato)
“All tremble at the rod, all fear death. Treating others like oneself, neither kill nor incite to kill.”
Impermanence & Letting Go
Dhammapada 20:277 (trans. F. Max Müller)
“‘All created things perish,’ he who knows and sees this becomes passive in pain; this is the way to purity.”
Tao Te Ching 76 (trans. James Legge)
“Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2 (trans. Edwin Arnold)
“Nay, but as when one layeth His worn-out robes away, And taking new ones, sayeth, "These will I wear to-day!" So putteth by the spirit Lightly its garb of flesh, And passeth to inherit A residence afresh.”
The Path to Wisdom
Dhammapada 20:282 (trans. Bhikkhu Sujato)
“From meditation springs wisdom, without meditation, wisdom ends.”
Analects 2:11 (trans. James Legge)
“If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others.”
Tao Te Ching 33 (trans. James Legge)
“He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent.”
Quran 39:9
“Are those who know equal with those who know not?”
Good vs Evil / Light vs Darkness
Yasna 30:3
“Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action.”
John 1:5
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Dhammapada 2 (trans. Bhikkhu Sujato)
“Intention is the leader of things; intention is first, they’re made by intention. If with pure intent you speak or act, happiness follows you like a shadow that never leaves.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16 (trans. Edwin Arnold)
“The Doors of Hell Are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass, The door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door Of Avarice. Let a man shun those three!”