31
📚✭The words of King Lemuel,the oracle✭ that his mother✭ taught him.
2 📚“What, my son?
And what, the son of my womb?
And what, the son of my vows?
3 📚Do not give your strength to women,
or your ways to that which destroys kings.
4 📚✭It is not for kings,
O Lemuel,
it is not for kings to drink wine,
or for rulers to imbibe strong drink,
5 📚Or they may drink and forget the law,
and pervert the judgment of some
of the afflicted.
6 📚✭Give strong drink to him
who is about to perish,
and wine to those who have heavy hearts.
7 📚Let him drink and forget his poverty,
and remember his misery no more.
8 📚Open your mouth for the dumb,
in the cause of all who are
facing destruction✭.
9 📚Open your mouth, judge righteously,
and plead the cause of the poor and needy”.
10 📚✭Who can find a virtuous✭ woman?
For her worth is far above rubies.
11 📚The heart of her husband safely trusts her,
so that he will have no need of plunder.
12 She will do him good and not evil
all the days of her life.
13 📚✭She looks for wool and flax,
and works willingly with her hands.
14 📚She is like the merchants’ ships;
she brings her food from a distance.
15 📚She also rises while it is yet night,
and gives food to her household,
and a portion to her maidens.
16 📚She considers a field, and buys it;
from the produce of her hands she plants
a vineyard.
17 📚She goes to work with vigor,
and strengthens her arms.
18 📚She sees that her business is good;
her lamp does not go out at night.
19 📚She puts her hands to the spindle,
and her hands hold the distaff.
20 📚She stretches out her hand to
help the poor; yes,
she extends her hands to the needy.
21 📚She is not afraid for her household
when the snow falls,
for all her household are clothed
with scarlet.
22 📚She makes for herself coverings
of tapestry;
her clothing is silk and purple.
23 📚Her husband is known in the gates,
when he sits among the elders of the land.
24 📚She makes fine linen and sells it,
and delivers sashes to the merchant.
25 📚Strength and honour are
her clothing,
and she rejoices in the future.
26 📚She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and in her tongue is the law
of kindness.
27 📚She looks well to the ways of her household,
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 📚✭Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her.
29 📚✭Many daughters have done virtuously✭,
but you excel them all.
30 📚✭Charm is deceitful and beauty
is vain,
but the woman who
fears the LORD, she will be praised.
31 📚✭Give her the product of her hands,
and let her own works praise her in the gates.