Proverbs 23

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¹When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider well who is before thee;

²and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.

³Be not desirous of his dainties; for they are deceitful food.

⁴Weary not thyself to become rich; cease from thine own intelligence:

⁵wilt thou set thine eyes upon it, it is gone; for indeed it maketh itself wings and it flieth away as an eagle towards the heavens.

⁶Eat thou not the food of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainties.

⁷For as he thinketh in his soul, so is he. Eat and drink! will he say unto thee; but his heart is not with thee.

⁸Thy morsel which thou hast eaten must thou vomit up, and thou wilt have wasted thy sweet words.

⁹Speak not in the ears of a foolish man, 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 mighty; 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 beatest him with the rod, he shall 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 shall rejoice, even mine;

¹⁶and my reins shall exult, when thy lips speak right things.

¹⁷Let not thy heart envy sinners, but be thou in the fear of Jehovah all the day;

¹⁸for surely there is a result, and thine expectation shall not be cut off.

¹⁹Thou, my son, hear and be wise, and direct thy heart in the way.

²⁰Be not among winebibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh.

²¹For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness clotheth 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; wisdom, and instruction, and intelligence.

²⁴The father of a righteous man shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise son shall have joy of him:

²⁵let thy father and thy mother have joy, and let her that bore thee rejoice.

²⁶My son, give me thy heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.

²⁷For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

²⁸She also lieth in wait as a robber, and increaseth the treacherous among men.

²⁹Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who contentions? Who complaining? Who wounds without cause? Who redness of eyes?

³⁰— They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to try mixed wine.

³¹Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it sparkleth in the cup, and goeth down smoothly:

³²at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

³³Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall speak froward things;

³⁴and thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, and as he that lieth down upon the top of a mast:

³⁵— “They have smitten me, and I am not sore; they have beaten me, and I knew it not. When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.”