Proverbs 23

¹When you sit down to dine with a ruler,[#Four admonitions for someone aspiring to be a sage: be careful about advancing your career by socializing with the great (vv. 1–3); avoid greed (vv. 4–5); do not force yourself on an unwilling host (vv. 6–8); do not waste your wisdom on those who cannot profit from it (v. 9).]

mark well the one who is before you;

²Stick the knife in your gullet[#: a metaphor for self-restraint. The usual translation, “Put a knife to your throat,” is misleading, for in English it is a death threat. The exhortation is humorously exaggerated: stick the table-knife in your own gullet rather than take too much food. It assumes that the young courtier is unused to opulent banquets and will be tempted to overindulgence.]

if you have a ravenous appetite.

³Do not desire his delicacies;

it is food that deceives.

⁴Do not wear yourself out to gain wealth,

cease to be worried about it;

⁵When your glance flits to it, it is gone!

For assuredly it grows wings,

like the eagle that flies toward heaven.

⁶Do not take food with unwilling hosts,[#Some humorous advice on not trading on the courtesy of unwilling hosts who, for convention’s sake, use the language of welcome. Amenemope , chap. 11, gives similar advice: “Do not intrude on a man in his house, / Enter when you have been called; / He may say ‘Welcome’ with his mouth, / Yet deride you in his thoughts.” “Unwilling,” lit., “evil of eye,” is usually translated “stingy,” but the context suggests unwilling. In v. 8, the unwanted guest vomits up the food, thus destroying the desired good impression. Proverbs regards the uninvited banqueters as thieves who will suffer the consequences of their theft. Amenemope , chap. 11, is relevant: “Do not covet a poor man’s goods,…A poor man’s goods are a block in the throat, / It makes the gullet vomit.”]

and do not desire their delicacies;

⁷For like something stuck in the throat is that food.

“Eat and drink,” they say to you,

but their hearts are not with you;

⁸The little you have eaten you will vomit up,

and you will have wasted your agreeable words.

⁹Do not speak in the hearing of fools;

they will despise the wisdom of your words.

¹⁰Do not remove the ancient landmark,[#Prv 22:28.]

nor invade the fields of the fatherless;

¹¹For their redeemer is strong;

he will defend their cause against you.

¹²Apply your heart to instruction,

and your ear to words of knowledge.

¹³Do not withhold discipline from youths;[#The young will not die from instructional blows but from their absence, for (premature) death results from uncorrected folly. The sardonic humor means the exhortation is not to be taken literally, as an argument for corporal punishment. The next verses (vv. 15–16) are exceedingly tender toward the young.]

if you beat them with the rod, they will not die.

¹⁴Beat them with the rod,[#Prv 29:15, 17.]

and you will save them from Sheol.

¹⁵My son, if your heart is wise,

my heart also will rejoice;

¹⁶And my inmost being will exult,

when your lips speak what is right.

¹⁷Do not let your heart envy sinners,[#Prv 3:31; 24:1, 19.]

but only those who always fear the Lord ;

¹⁸For you will surely have a future,

and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁹Hear, my son, and be wise,

and guide your heart in the right way.

²⁰Do not join with wine bibbers,

nor with those who glut themselves on meat.

²¹For drunkards and gluttons come to poverty,

and lazing about clothes one in rags.

²²Listen to your father who begot you,[#Father and mother are associated with truth and wisdom. One should no more rid oneself of truth and wisdom than rid oneself of one’s parents, who are their source.]

do not despise your mother when she is old.

²³Buy truth and do not sell:

wisdom, instruction, understanding!

²⁴The father of a just person will exult greatly;

whoever begets a wise son will rejoice in him.

²⁵Let your father and mother rejoice;

let her who bore you exult.

²⁶My son, give me your heart,[#The exhortation is a condensed version of chap. 7 with its emotional appeal to “my son” to avoid the forbidden woman (7:1–5), her traps (7:21–23), and her intent to add the youth to her list of victims (7:24–27). As in 23:15, 19, 22, a trustful and affectionate relationship between student and teacher is the basis of teaching. The danger of the woman is expressed in imagery that has sexual overtones (cf. 22:14).]

and let your eyes keep to my ways,

²⁷For the harlot is a deep pit,

and the foreign woman a narrow well;

²⁸Yes, she lies in wait like a robber,[#Prv 7:10–27.]

and increases the number of the faithless.

²⁹Who scream? Who shout?[#A vivid description of the evil effects, physical and psychological, of drunkenness. The emphasis is on the unwise behavior, the folly, caused by alcohol. Cf. 20:1.]

Who have strife? Who have anxiety?

Who have wounds for nothing?

Who have bleary eyes?

³⁰Whoever linger long over wine,

whoever go around quaffing wine.

³¹Do not look on the wine when it is red,

when it sparkles in the cup.

It goes down smoothly,

³²but in the end it bites like a serpent,

and stings like an adder.

³³Your eyes behold strange sights,

and your heart utters incoherent things;

³⁴You are like one sleeping on the high seas,

sprawled at the top of the mast.

³⁵“They struck me, but it did not pain me;

they beat me, but I did not feel it.

When can I get up,

when can I go out and get more?”