1 Phocylides, the wisest of men, sets forth
2 these counsels of God by his holy judgments, gifts of blessing.
3 Neither commit adultery nor rouse homosexual passion.
4 Neither devise treachery nor stain your hands with blood.
5 Do not become rich unjustly, but live from honorable means.
6 Be content with what you have and abstain from what is another’s.
7 Do not tell lies, but always speak the truth.
8 Honor God foremost, and afterward your parents.
9 Always dispense justice and let not your judgment be influenced by favor.
10 Do not cast down the poor unjustly, do not judge partially.
11 If you judge evilly, subsequently God will judge you.
12 Flee false witness; award what is just.
13 Watch over a deposit, and in everything keep faith.
14 Give a just measure, and an extra full measure of all things is good.
15 Do not make a balance unequal, but weigh honestly.
16 And do not commit perjury, neither ignorantly nor willingly.
17 The immortal God hates a perjurer, whosoever it is who has sworn.
18 Do not steal seeds. Cursed is whosoever takes (them).
19 Give the laborer his pay, do not afflict the poor.
20 Take heed of your tongue, keep your word hidden in (your) heart.
21 Neither wish to do injustice, nor therefore allow another to do injustice.
22 Give to the poor man at once, and do not tell him to come tomorrow.
23 You must fill your hand. Give alms to the needy.
24 Receive the homeless in (your) house, and lead the blind man.
25 Pity the shipwrecked, for navigation is unsure.
26 Extend your hand to him who falls, and save the helpless one.
27 Suffering is common to all; life is a wheel; prosperity is unstable.
23 When you have wealth, stretch out your hand to the poor.
29 Of that which God has given you, give of it to the needy.
30 Let all of life be in common, and all things be in agreement.
31 [Do not eat blood; abstain from what is sacrificed to idols.]
32 Put on a sword, not for bloodshed but for protection.
33 But may you not need it at all, neither outside the law nor justly.
34 For if you kill an enemy, you stain your hand.
35 Keep off the field of your neighbor, and therefore do not be a trespasser.
36 Moderation is the best of all, and excesses are grievous.
37 [Lawful acquisition is useful, but unjust acquisition is bad.]
38 Do not damage fruits that are growing on the land.
39 Strangers should be held in equal honor among citizens.
40 For we all experience the poverty of much wandering.
41 And the land of the country has nothing steadfast for men.
42 The love of money is the mother of all evil.
43 Gold and silver are always a lure for men.
44 Gold, originator of evil, destroyer of life, crushing all things,
45 would that you were not a desirable calamity to mortals!
46 For your sake there are battles and plunderings and murders,
47 and children become the enemies of their parents, and brothers (the enemies) of their kinsmen.
48 Do not hide a different thought in your heart while uttering another.
49 Change not yourself according to the spot, like a polyp that clings to the rock.
50 Be sincere? to all, speak what is from your soul.
51 Whoever wrongs willfully is a bad man; but if he does so under compulsion,
52 I shall not pass sentence, for it is each man’s intention that is examined.
53 Do not pride yourself on wisdom nor on strength nor on riches.:
54 The only God is wise and mighty and at the same time rich in blessings.
55 Do not afflict your heart? with yeon evils;
56 for what has been done can no more be undone.
57 Do not be rash with (your) hands, but bridle your wild anger.
58 For often someone who has dealt a blow has unintentionally committed a murder.
59 Let (your) emotions be moderate, neither great nor overwhelming.
60 Excess, even of good, is never a boon to mortals;
61 and a great luxuriousness draws one to immoderate desires.
62 Great wealth is conceited and grows to insolence.
63 Anger that steals over one causes destructive madness.
64 Rage is a desire, but wrath surpasses (it).
65 Zeal for good things is noble, but (zeal for) bad things (is) excessive.
66 Daring in bad deeds is ruinous, but greatly helps a man who works at good deeds.
67 Love of virtue is worthy, but love of passion increases shame.
68 A man who is too naïve is called foolish among the citizens.
69 Eat in moderation, and drink and tell stories in moderation.
69b Moderation is the best of all, excesses are grievous.
70 Do not envy (your) friends their goods, do not fix reproach (upon them).
71 The heavenly ones? also are without envy toward each other.
72 The moon does not envy the much stronger beams of the sun,
73 nor the earth the heavenly heights though it is below,
74 nor the rivers the seas. They are always. in concord.
75 For if there were strife among the blessed ones, heaven would not stand firm.
76 Practice self-restraint, and abstain from shameful deeds.
77 Do not imitate evil, but leave vengeance to justice.
78 For persuasiveness is a blessing, but strife begets only strife.
79 Trust not too quickly, before you can see exactly the end.
80 It is proper to surpass (your) benefactors with still more (benefactions).
81 It is better to entertain guests with a simple meal quickly
82 than extensive festivity drawn out beyond the right time.
83 Never be a relentless creditor to a poor man.
84 One should not take from a nest all the birds together,
85 but leave the mother bird behind, in order to get young from her again.
86 Never allow ignorant men to sit in judgment.
87 [Do not pass a judgment before you have heard the word of both parties.]
88 A wise man examines wisdom, and a fellow craftsman (examines) crafts.
89 An untrained ear cannot grasp important teaching;
90 for those who have never learned good things do not understand.
91 Do not make parasitic flatterers your friends.
92 For many are friends of drinking and eating,
93 flattering at a time whenever they can satiate themselves,
94 but all being discontented with little and unsatiated with much.
95 Trust not the people; the mob is fickle;
96 for the people and water and fire are all equally uncontrollable.’
97 Sit not in vain at the fire, weakening your heart.
98 Be moderate in your grief; for moderation is the best.
99 Let the unburied dead receive their share of the earth.
100 Do not dig up the grave of the deceased, nor expose to the sun
101 what may not be seen, lest you stir up the divine anger.
102 It is not good to dissolve the human frame;
103 for we hope that the remains of the departed will soon come to the light (again)
104 out of the earth;! and afterward they will become gods.
105 For the souls remain unharmed among the deceased.
106 For the spirit is a loan of God to mortals, and (his) image.
107 For we have a body out of earth, and when afterward we are resolved again into earth
108 we are but dust; and then the air has received our spirit.
109 When you are rich, do not be sparing; remember that you are mortal.
110 It is impossible to take riches and money (with you) into Hades.
111 All alike are corpses, but God rules over the souls.
112 Hades is (our) common eternal home and fatherland,
113 a common place for all, poor and kings.
114 We humans live not a long time but for a season.
115 But (our) soul is immortal and lives ageless forever.!
116 [Nobody knows what will be after tomorrow. or after an hour.
117 Death is heedless of mortals, and the future is uncertain.
118 Do not let evils dismay you nor therefore exult in success.
119 Many times in life incredible calamity has come suddenly
120 to the confident and release from evil to the vexed.
121 Accommodate yourself to the circumstances, do not blow against the winds.
122 Do not become mad in your mind by reveling in boastfulness.
123 Practice speaking the right word, which will greatly benefit all.
124 Speech is to man a weapon sharper than iron.
125 God allotted a weapon to every creature; the capacity to fly
126 to birds, speed to horses, and strength to the lions;
127 he clothed the bulls with their self-growing horns, he gave stings to the bees
128 as their natural means of defense, but speech to man as his protection.
129 [But speech of the divinely inspired wisdom is best.]
130 Better is a wise man than a strong one.
131 Wisdom directs the course of lands and cities and ships.
132 It is unholy to hide a wicked man so as to prevent his being brought to trial;
133 but one must return an evildoer forcibly.
134 Those who are with the wicked often die with them.
135 Do not accept from thieves a stolen, unlawful deposit.
136 Both are thieves, the one who receives as well as the one who steals.
137 Render to all their due, and impartiality is best in every way.
138 In the beginning be sparing with all things, lest in the end you fall short.
139 Take not for yourself a mortal beast’s ration of food.
140 But if a beast of (your) enemy falls on the way, help it to rise.
141 Never expose a wandering man and a sinner.
142 It is better to make a gracious friend instead of an enemy.
143 Nip the evil in the bud, and heal the wound.
144 [By a tiny spark a vast forest is set on fire.]
145 [Keep your heart restrained and abstain from disgraceful things.]
146 [Flee an evil report; flee lawless men. ]
147 Eat no meat that is torn by wild animals, but leave the remains
148 to the swift dogs. Animals eat from animals.
149 Make no potions, keep away from magical books.
150 Do not apply your hand violently to tender children.
151 Flee dissension and strife when war is drawing near.
152 Do no good to a bad man; it is like sowing into the sea.’
153 Work hard so that you can live from your own means;
154 for every idle man lives from what his hands can steal.
155 [A craft maintains a man, but an idle man is oppressed by hunger. ]
156 Eat not the leavings of another man’s meal,
157 but eat without shame what you have earned yourself.
158 And if someone has not learned a craft, he must dig with a hoe.
159 Life has every kind of work if you are willing to toil.
160 If you want to sail and be a mariner, the sea is wide.
161 And if you want to cultivate land, the fields are large.
162 There is no easy work without toil, (neither) for men,nor for the blessed themselves.
163 But labor gives great increase to virtue.
164 The ants having left their homes, deeply hidden under the earth,
165 come in their need of food when the fields
166 fill the threshing floors with fruits after the crops have been reaped.
167 They themselves have a load of freshly threshed wheat
168 or barley—and always bearer follows bearer—
169 and from the summer harvest they supply their food for the winter,
170 without tiring. This tiny folk is much-laboring.
171 The bee toils, traversing the air, working excellently,
172 whether in the crevice of a hollow rock or in the reeds,
173 or in the hollow of an ancient oak, within their nests,
174 in swarms at their thousand-celled combs, building with wax.
175 Do not remain unmarried, lest you die nameless.
176 Give nature her due, you also, beget in your turn as you were begotten.
177 Do not prostitute your wife, defiling your children.
178 For the adulterous bed brings not sons in (your) likeness.
179 Do not touch your stepmother, your father’s second wife,
180 but honor her as a mother, because she follows the footsteps of your mother.
181 Do not have intercourse with the concubines of (your) father.
182 Do not approach the bed of (your) sister, (a bed) to turn away from.
183 Nor go to bed with the wives of your brothers.
184 Do not let a woman destroy the unborn babe in her belly,
185 nor after its birth throw it before the dogs and the vultures as a prey.
186 Do not lay your hand upon your wife when she is pregnant.
187 Do not cut a youth’s masculine procreative faculty.
188 Do not seek sexual union with irrational animals.
189 Do not outrage (your) wife by shameful ways of intercourse.
190 Do not transgress with unlawful sex the limits set by nature.
191 For even animals are not pleased by intercourse of male with male.
192 And let women not imitate the sexual role of men.
193 Do not surrender wholly to unbridled sensuality toward (your) wife.
194 For eros is not a god,but a passion destructive of all.
195 Love your own wife, for what is sweeter and better
196 than whenever a wife is kindly disposed toward (her) husband and a husband toward (his) wife
197 till old age, without strife divisively interfering?
198 Let no one violently have intercourse with a girl not yet betrothed.
199 Do not bring as a wife into your home a bad and wealthy woman,
200 for you will be a slave of (your) wife because of the ruinous dowry.
201 We seek noble horses and strong-necked bulls,
202 plowers of the earth, and the very best of dogs;
203 yet we fools do not strive to marry a good (wife),
204 nor does a woman reject a bad man when he is rich.
205 Do not add marriage to marriage, calamity to calamity.
206 Nor permit yourself strife with your kinsfolk about possessions.
207 Do not be harsh with your children, but be gentle.
208 And if a child offends against you, let the mother cut her son down to size,
209 or else the elders of the family or the chiefs of the people.
210 If a child is a boy do not let locks grow on (his) head.
211 Do not braid (his) crown nor the cross knots at the top of his head.
212 Long hair is not fit for boys, but for voluptuous women.»
213 Guard the youthful prime of life of a comely boy,
214 because many rage for intercourse with a man.
215 Guard a virgin in firmly locked rooms,
216 and do not let her be seen before the house until her wedding day.
217 The beauty of children is hard for their parents to guard.
218 [Love your friends till death, for faithfulness is a good thing.]
219 Show love to your kinsmen and holy unanimity. —
220 Revere those with gray hair on the temples and yield your seat
221 and all privileges to aged persons. An old man of equal descent
222 and of the same age as your father give the same honors.
223 Provide your slave with the tribute he owes his stomach.
224 Apportion to a slave what is appointed so that he will be as you wish.
225 Do not brand (your) slave, thus insulting him.
226 Do not hurt a slave by slandering (him) to (his) master.’
227 Accept advice also from a judicious slave.
228 Purifications are for the purity of the soul, not of the body.
229 These are the mysteries of righteousness; living thus
230 may you live out (your) life well to the threshold of old age.