Proverbs 5:23

¹²But if they don’t listen, they will perish by the sword; they will die without knowledge.

²¹Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’

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; ¹⁹promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.

²⁰For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. ²²But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns to his own vomit again,”and “the sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire.”

³²The wicked is brought down in his calamity, but in death, the righteous has a refuge.

²¹The lips of the righteous feed many, but the foolish die for lack of understanding.

¹⁴The unfaithful will be repaid for his own ways; likewise a good man will be rewarded for his ways.

¹²So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.