Mishlĕ (Proverbs) 23

¹When you sit down to eat with a ruler, Look well what is before you;

²And put a knife to your throat If you are a man given to appetite.

³Do not desire his delicacies, For that food is deceptive.

⁴Do not labour to be rich. Cease from your own understanding!

⁵Do you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle to the heavens.

⁶Do not eat the bread of one having an evil eye, Nor desire his delicacies;

⁷For as he reckons in his life, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.

⁸You vomit the piece you have eaten, And lose your sweet words.

⁹Do not speak in the ears of a fool, For he treads on the wisdom of your words.

¹⁰Do not move the ancient boundary, And do not enter the fields of the fatherless;

¹¹For their Redeemer is strong; He shall plead their cause against you.

¹²Bring your heart to discipline, And your ears to words of knowledge.

¹³Do not withhold discipline from a child; If you strike him with a rod, he does not die.

¹⁴Strike him with a rod And deliver his being from She’ol.

¹⁵My son, if your heart shall be wise, My heart rejoices, even I,

¹⁶And my kidneys exult When your lips speak what is straight.

¹⁷Do not let your heart envy sinners, But be in the fear of יהוה all day long;

¹⁸For certain, there is a hereafter, And let your expectancy not be cut off.

¹⁹Hear, my son, and be wise, And guide your heart in the way.

²⁰Be not among heavy drinkers of wine Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;

²¹For the drunkard and the glutton become poor, And slumber puts rags on a man .

²²Listen to your father who brought you forth, And do not despise your mother when she is old.

²³Buy the truth and do not sell it – Wisdom and discipline and understanding.

²⁴The father of the righteous greatly rejoices, And he who brings forth a wise one delights in him.

²⁵Let your father and your mother rejoice, And let her who bore you exult.

²⁶My son, give me your heart, And let your eyes watch my ways.

²⁷For a whore is a deep pit, And a strange woman is a narrow well.

²⁸She too lies in wait as for a prey, And increases the treacherous among men.

²⁹Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who feels hurt without cause? Who has redness of eyes?

³⁰Those staying long at the wine, Those going in to search out mixed wine.

³¹Do not look on the wine when it is red, When it gives its colour in the cup, As it flows smoothly;

³²In the end it bites like a snake, And stings like an adder –

³³Your eyes look on strange women, And your heart speaks perversities.

³⁴And you shall be as one Lying down in the midst of the sea, And as one lying at the top of the mast, saying,

³⁵“They struck me, I was not sick! They beat me, I did not know! When shall I wake up? Let me seek it again!”