Judaism
Proverbs 7
Text
My son, keep my words, And lay up my commandments with thee.
Keep my commandments and live, And my teaching as the apple of thine eye.
Bind them upon thy fingers, Write them upon the table of thy heart.
Say unto wisdom: ‘Thou art my sister’, And call understanding thy kinswoman;
That they may keep thee from the strange woman, From the alien woman that maketh smooth her words.
For at the window of my house I looked forth through my lattice;
And I beheld among the thoughtless ones, I discerned among the youths, A young man void of understanding,
Passing through the street near her corner, And he went the way to her house;
In the twilight, in the evening of the day, In the blackness of night and the darkness.
And, behold, there met him a woman With the attire of a harlot, and wily of heart.
She is riotous and rebellious, Her feet abide not in her house;
Now she is in the streets, now in the broad places, And lieth in wait at every corner.
So she caught him, and kissed him, And with an impudent face she said unto him:
’Sacrifices of peace-offerings were due from me; This day have I paid my vows.
Therefore came I forth to meet thee, To seek thy face, and I have found thee.
I have decked my couch with coverlets, With striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.
I have perfumed my bed With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning; Let us solace ourselves with loves.
For my husband is not at home, He is gone a long journey;
He hath taken the bag of money with him; He will come home at the full moon.’
With her much fair speech she causeth him to yield, With the blandishment of her lips she enticeth him away.
He goeth after her straightway, As an ox that goeth to the slaughter, Or as one in fetters to the correction of the fool;
Till an arrow strike through his liver; As a bird hasteneth to the snare— And knoweth not that it is at the cost of his life.
Now therefore, O ye children, hearken unto me, And attend to the words of my mouth.
Let not thy heart decline to her ways, Go not astray in her paths.
For she hath cast down many wounded; Yea, a mighty host are all her slain.
Her house is the way to the nether-world, Going down to the chambers of death.
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!”