Proverbs 23

¹When thou sittest to eat with a ruler,

Consider diligently him that is before thee;

²And put a knife to thy throat,

If thou be a man given to appetite.

³Be not desirous of his dainties;

Seeing they are deceitful food.

⁴Weary not thyself to be rich;

Cease from thine own wisdom.

⁵Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?

For riches certainly make themselves wings,

Like an eagle that flieth toward heaven.

⁶Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye,

Neither desire thou his dainties:

⁷For as he thinketh within himself, so is he:

Eat and drink, saith he to thee;

But his heart is not with thee.

⁸The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up,

And lose thy sweet words.

⁹Speak not in the hearing of a fool;

For he will despise the wisdom of thy words.

¹⁰Remove not the ancient landmark;

And enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

¹¹For their Redeemer is strong;

He will plead their cause against thee.

¹²Apply thy heart unto instruction,

And thine ears to the words of knowledge.

¹³Withhold not correction from the child;

For if thou beat him with the rod, he will not die.

¹⁴Thou shalt beat him with the rod,

And shalt deliver his soul from Sheol.

¹⁵My son, if thy heart be wise,

My heart will be glad, even mine:

¹⁶Yea, my heart will rejoice,

When thy lips speak right things.

¹⁷Let not thy heart envy sinners;

But be thou in the fear of Jehovah all the day long:

¹⁸For surely there is a reward;

And thy hope shall not be cut off.

¹⁹Hear thou, my son, and be wise,

And guide thy heart in the way.

²⁰Be not among winebibbers,

Among gluttonous eaters of flesh:

²¹For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty;

And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.

²²Hearken unto thy father that begat thee,

And despise not thy mother when she is old.

²³Buy the truth, and sell it not;

Yea, wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.

²⁴The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;

And he that begetteth a wise child will have joy of him.

²⁵Let thy father and thy mother be glad,

And let her that bare thee rejoice.

²⁶My son, give me thy heart;

And let thine eyes delight in my ways.

²⁷For a harlot is a deep ditch;

And a foreign woman is a narrow pit.

²⁸Yea, she lieth in wait as a robber,

And increaseth the treacherous among men.

²⁹Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions?

Who hath complaining? who hath wounds without cause?

Who hath redness of eyes?

³⁰They that tarry long at the wine;

They that go to seek out mixed wine.

³¹Look not thou upon the wine when it is red,

When it sparkleth in the cup,

When it goeth down smoothly:

³²At the last it biteth like a serpent,

And stingeth like an adder.

³³Thine eyes shall behold strange things,

And thy heart shall utter perverse things.

³⁴Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea,

Or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.

³⁵They have stricken me, shalt thou 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.