27. Do your planning and prepare your fieldsbefore building your house.
28. Don’t testify against your neighbors without cause;don’t lie about them.
29. And don’t say, “Now I can pay them back for what they’ve done to me!I’ll get even with them!”
30. I walked by the field of a lazy person,the vineyard of one with no common sense.
31. I saw that it was overgrown with nettles.It was covered with weeds,and its walls were broken down.
32. Then, as I looked and thought about it,I learned this lesson:
33. A little extra sleep, a little more slumber,a little folding of the hands to rest—
34. then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit;scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.