The Instruction of Amenemope

(1.1) This is the start of the teaching about light and life:(1.2) good new instructions for making people flourish,(1.3) handed down from the advice of those who came before,(1.4) from worthy men and their companions.(1.5) The skilled man knew them and passed them to the king,(1.6) so that people could live by them afterward.(1.7) Set your heart on them, so your name will last(1.8) and your good reputation will stay firm on earth.(1.9) They are given to a son from a loving heart,(1.10) for him to see, to hear, and to keep.(1.11) Don't say more than you are asked,(1.12) so no one becomes angry with you.(1.13) Pay attention to how the land works,(1.14) and to what happened before: that is wisdom.(1.15) * Look at the excellent son, God's gift,(1.16) the heir born from a loving heart.(1.17) His body is healthy; he lives a long life;(1.18) and a man who listens is honored.

(2.1) The king put him in charge of the council,(2.2) and he speaks with the weight of the ancestors,(2.3) because a son should serve his father(2.4) and pass on what his father taught.(2.5) * Look at the excellent son, God's gift,(2.6) placed first in the council of the land.(2.7) Speak to him about peace of heart;(2.8) he answers with words that come from heaven.(2.9) Marry with a joyful heart,(2.10) and a son will be born like his father.(2.11) * Don't let your heart swell up with pride in your strength;(2.12) don't be the one who lifts himself above everyone.(2.13) I had a son, and he was wise;(2.14) I taught him everything my father taught me.(2.15) He walked ahead of me like an elder,(2.16) and he kept every word I gave him.(2.17) He sat in his mother's house,(2.18) and every servant praised him.(2.19) * The good give; and God has said,(2.19) "Put him in charge of the harvest."

(3.1) May God give you a heart, my son, and ears,(3.2) and open your eyes to the two ways people go.(3.3) Listen, my son, to what I say,(3.4) for the wise one is speaking to you.(3.5) My mother bore me to my father,(3.6) a son given in answer to prayer.(3.7) Nothing is better for a man than a son;(3.8) God gave him to you as a gift.(3.9) * Don't plan against the man who plans against you;(3.10) answer him calmly instead.(3.11) Leave him to God; leave him to the morning,(3.12) and let God's hands take him away.(3.13) Sleep in peace through the night;(3.14) in the morning you'll see what God has done.(3.15) Don't shout at the sky; God knows;(3.16) the storm passes and the sky clears.(3.17) Don't stir up a flood inside yourself;(3.18) it is God who carries the truth along.(3.19) * The river runs crooked, and God(3.19) is the quiet bank that holds it.

(4.1) My son, listen; turn your ear to me;(4.2) open your heart to your father's words:(4.3) watch out for the man who starts fights,(4.4) the hot-tempered one, the plague of judges.(4.5) Don't answer him in a hurry,(4.6) and he will go back into his own silence.(4.7) When a man's heart is burning, don't answer;(4.8) stay quiet, and that's how you win.(4.9) * When people argue, don't step in;(4.10) don't get pulled into someone else's quarrel.(4.11) If a fight breaks out and you stand apart,(4.12) it will slip away like water from your hands.(4.13) Don't be friends with the fiery man,(4.14) and don't walk the road beside him.(4.15) Keep your eye on what's in front of you;(4.16) hold your tongue when anger flares.(4.17) If a hot-tempered man speaks to you,(4.18) turn away and stay silent.(4.19) Leave him alone; his word will fall flat,(4.19) and God sends the wind that clears it.

(5.1) Don't stir up a flood; don't be the one who argues;(5.2) don't answer a burning heart;(5.3) step back from the furious man; the crocodile's tongue(5.4) curls back into its own stillness.(5.5) My son, keep the teaching of your father;(5.6) take it deep into your heart,(5.7) for it is a light over the water:(5.8) walk by it and your foot won't slip.(5.9) Don't eat bread in a man's house(5.10) until you have given him your greeting.(5.11) * Beware of stealing the poor man's field,(5.12) and of trampling the widow's vineyard.(5.13) Don't touch the fatherless man's furrow,(5.14) or move the boundary of one who has no defender.(5.15) Their plea will rise in the end, and you will hear it;(5.16) their cry will reach the sky above you.(5.17) The silence of the broken is louder than thunder;(5.18) the lowing of a strong ox is not like an arrow's cry.(5.19) * Don't fill your heart with another's field;(5.19) let morning come, and God will weigh it.

(6.1) Don't rob the wounded man in the street,(6.2) or carry off the harvest of the blind.(6.3) Don't take the orphan's water pot(6.4) or the blind man's boat on the river.(6.5) Don't pull up the stake of a field(6.6) or the boundary set by the surveyor's rope.(6.7) Don't say, "My father gave me this field";(6.8) God gathers what God has given.(6.9) * Don't trample the widow as you walk,(6.10) or stride deep into her field.(6.11) Don't reach out your hand to the man(6.12) who is bent under someone else's harvest.(6.13) Don't cheat the scale in the balance,(6.14) or tip the weights of the hand-scale.(6.15) Don't cheat with the grain measure,(6.16) or lift the bushel like a thief.(6.17) Don't fix your heart on the measuring vessel(6.18) to turn the handful into the heaped measure.(6.19) God is the one who weighs; He is the hand;(6.19) don't trust the crooked way.

(6.20) * Don't take the widow's share by force,(6.20) or claim the orphan's fields.(7.1) Don't plant your fence in another's field,(7.2) or take the pin that holds the lock.(7.3) The heart is not light when it has stolen;(7.4) a theft is heavy; it sinks the boat.(7.5) The thief's soul is never calm;(7.6) he dreads the morning of the reckoning.(7.7) God has charged the river to keep watch,(7.8) and the flowing water never sleeps.(7.9) * Don't say, "My ways are secret";(7.10) the river knows, and it will tell.(7.11) God's hand is on every deed;(7.12) He carries the crooked to the sandbank.(7.13) Don't set your heart on every treasure,(7.14) for the flood will carry the shore away.(7.15) Beware the robber's anger;(7.16) be straight, and the straight will guard you.(7.17) Don't pile up riches by stealing;(7.18) they won't last the night in your house.(7.19) They'll slip away like water from your hands;(7.19) in the morning the store will be empty.

(8.1) Don't eat bread while another goes hungry,(8.2) or fill your house alone with your own hand.(8.3) God's bread comes to every mouth;(8.4) the man who hoards doesn't really own.(8.5) The field is God's; the harvest belongs to the town;(8.6) the greedy man's house stands on sand.(8.7) Don't say, "I've found a powerful protector";(8.8) God is the protector, and He isn't blind.(8.9) * Don't be proud of your wisdom;(8.10) talk with the ignorant as with the wise,(8.11) for the limits of skill are never reached,(8.12) and no artist's hand is ever full.(8.13) Good speech is rarer than green stone,(8.14) yet it's found with the slave girls at the mill.(8.15) * Don't say of anyone, "He's worthless";(8.16) God hasn't weighed him in front of you.(8.17) A person's silence is worth more than chatter;(8.18) don't mock the man in need.(8.19) The lion's roar belongs to the beast;(8.19) the mercy of the hand belongs to man.

(9.1) Don't let your heart swell with learning;(9.2) don't boast that you've found the word.(9.3) Take advice from the ignorant as from the learned,(9.4) for the bank of skill is never full.(9.5) Good speech is rarer than green stone,(9.6) yet it's found among the mill girls.(9.7) Don't be proud of riches, even if they came to you(9.8) unasked: they are God's gift.(9.9) Don't count on tomorrow; it isn't yours;(9.10) morning may come and find your hand empty.(9.11) The work of God is hidden water;(9.12) no one knows where it rises.(9.13) * Don't trouble the heart of the widow;(9.14) don't lay a hand on her field.(9.15) Don't turn away from the broken man's cry,(9.16) for God's ear has already heard it.(9.17) The prayer of the broken is heard on high;(9.18) what is written is written, and it comes to pass.

(10.1) Don't be the one who moves the boundary,(10.2) or shifts the field-marker toward his side;(10.3) don't say, "My father's field is mine";(10.4) God set the limit and wrote it down.(10.5) Don't set your heart on a long life,(10.6) or lean on the years you expect;(10.7) life passes like a shadow on a wall,(10.8) and what is written was written long ago.(10.9) * Keep your heart steady among people;(10.10) stay quiet; the truth will find its way.(10.11) Don't quarrel with the man who crosses you;(10.12) keep your hand from a moment's wrong.(10.13) A hot heart is a fire in the house of the one who holds it;(10.14) be patient, and God will be your hand.(10.15) Don't speak evil of the man who is absent;(10.16) speak well, and your own name will be kept.(10.17) Give your heart to what is written here:(10.18) it is the way of the excellent son, the gift of God.