Proverbs 5:14

²⁰One who walks with wise men grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.

⁶Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. ⁷Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”⁸Let’s not commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell.

¹⁰but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, ¹¹whereas angels, though greater in might and power, don’t bring a slanderous judgment against them before the Lord. ¹²But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed, ¹³receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and defects, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you; ¹⁴having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin, enticing unsettled souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children! ¹⁵Forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing; ¹⁶but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A speechless donkey spoke with a man’s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet.

¹⁷These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. ¹⁸For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error;

¹Israel stayed in Shittim; and the people began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab; ²for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods. ³Israel joined himself to Baal Peor, and the LORD’s anger burned against Israel. ⁴The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up to the LORD before the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.”

⁵Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Everyone kill his men who have joined themselves to Baal Peor.”

⁶Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the Tent of Meeting.

¹¹Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away understanding. ¹²My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, and they have been unfaithful to their God. ¹³They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and burn incense on the hills, under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, because its shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the prostitute, and your brides commit adultery. ¹⁴I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute, nor your brides when they commit adultery; because the men consort with prostitutes, and they sacrifice with the shrine prostitutes; so the people without understanding will come to ruin.

⁷Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having in the same way as these given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. ⁸Yet in the same way, these also in their dreaming defile the flesh, despise authority, and slander celestial beings. ⁹But Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil and arguing about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him an abusive condemnation, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰But these speak evil of whatever things they don’t know. They are destroyed in these things that they understand naturally, like the creatures without reason. ¹¹Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in Korah’s rebellion. ¹²These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; ¹³wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.