CHAPTER 30
1The words of Agur, son of Yaqeh, the oracle, utterance of the man, to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ukhal.
2For I am a brute among men,
and no human discernment have I.
3I have not learned wisdom,
nor the knowledge of the holy ones do I know.
4Who has gone up to the heavens and come down,
who has scooped up the wind in his palms?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak.
Who has raised up all ends of the earth?
What is his name or the name of his son,
That you should know?
5Every saying of God is pure,
He is a shield to all who shelter in Him.
6Add nothing to His words,
lest He rebuke you and you be given the lie.
7Two things I have asked of You,
do not withhold them from me before I die.
8Falsehood and lying words keep far from me.
Privation and wealth do not give me.
9Lest I be sated and I renounce,
and I say, “Who is the LORD?”
And lest I lose all and I steal
and profane the name of my God.
10Do not denounce a slave to his master,
lest he revile you and you bear guilt.
11A generation that reviles its father
and its mother it does not bless.
12A generation that is pure in its eyes
though it has not been washed of its filth.
13A generation, how haughty its eyes,
and its eyelids, how arrogant.
14A generation whose teeth are swords,
to devour the lowly from the earth
and the impoverished from humankind.
15aThe leech has two daughters: “Give!” “Give!”
Three things are there that are not sated,
15bfour that do not say, “Enough!”:
16Sheol and a blocked womb,
the earth unsated with water
and fire, which does not say “Enough!”
17An eye that mocks a father
and scorns submission to a mother,
the rooks of the river will gouge it,
and the eagle’s young will devour it.
18Three things are there too wondrous for me,
and four that I cannot know:
19the eagle’s way in the heavens,
the way of the snake on a rock,
the ship’s way in the heart of the sea,
and the way of a man in a young woman.
20This is the way of an adulterous woman—
and says, “I did nothing wrong.”
21For three things does the earth shudder,
and for four, it cannot bear it:
22for a slave who rules
and a scoundrel who is sated with bread,
23for a hateful woman in the marriage bed,
and a slavegirl who dispossesses her mistress.
24Four things are the smallest on earth,
yet they are the very wisest:
25the ants, a people not strong,
who ready their bread in the summer,
26the badgers, a people not mighty,
who make their home in the cleft,
27the locusts, who have no king,
28the spider, who can be caught with hands,
yet is in the palace of kings.
29Three things stride handsomely
and four things handsomely walk:
30the lion, mightiest of beasts,
who does not turn back from anything,
31the rooster and the he-goat,
and the king against whom none can stand.
32If you have been a scoundrel in arrogance,
and if you have schemed—put a hand on your mouth!
33For squeezed milk produces butter,
and a squeezed nose produces blood,