Prov 23
1
When you sit to eat with a ruler, Consider diligently him whom is before you;
2
And put a knife to your throat, If you be a man given to appetite.
3
Be not desirous of his dainties; Seeing they are deceitful food.
4
Weary not yourself to be rich; Cease from your own wisdom.
5
Will you set your eyes upon that which is not? For [riches] certainly make themselves
wings, Like an eagle that flies toward heaven.
6
Eat you not the bread of him whom has an evil eye, Neither desire you his dainties:
7
For as he thinks within himself, so is he: Eat and drink, says he to you; But his
heart is not with you.
8
The morsel which you have eaten shall you vomit up, And lose your sweet words.
9
Speak not in the hearing of a fool; For he will despise the wisdom of your words.
10
Remove not the ancient landmark; And enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
11
For their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their cause against you.
12
Apply your heart to instruction, And your ears to the words of knowledge.
13
Withhold not correction from the child; [For] if you beat him with the rod, he will
not die.
14
You shall beat him with the rod, And shall deliver his soul from Sheol.
15
My son, if your heart be wise, My heart will be glad, even mine:
16
Yea, my heart will rejoice, When your lips speak right things.
17
Let not your heart envy sinners; But [be you] in the fear of YHWH all the day long:
18
For surely there is a reward; And your hope shall not be cut off.
19
Hear you, my son, and be wise, And guide your heart in the way.
20
Be not among winebibbers, Among gluttonous eaters of flesh:
21
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; And drowsiness will clothe
[a man] with rags.
22
Hearken to your father that engendered you, And despise not your mother when she is
old.
23
Buy the truth, and sell it not; [Yea], wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
24
The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; And he who engenders a wise child
will have joy of him.
25
Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her that bare you rejoice.
26
My son, give me your heart; And let your eyes delight in my ways.
27
For a harlot is a deep ditch; And a foreign woman is a narrow pit.
28
Yea, she lies in wait as a robber, And increases the treacherous among men.
29
Who has woe? who has sorrow? who has contentions? Who has complaining? who has wounds
without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
30
They that tarry long at the wine; They that go to seek out mixed wine.
31
Look not you upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes
down smoothly:
32
At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like an adder.
33
Your eyes shall behold strange things, And your heart shall utter perverse things.
34
Yea, you shall be as he who lies down in the midst of the sea, Or as he who
lies upon the top of a mast.
35
They have stricken me, [shall you say], and I was not hurt; They have beaten
me, and I felt it not: When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.