Proverbs 23:10-33

¹⁰Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless:

¹¹For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee.

¹²Let thy heart apply itself to instruction: and thy ears to words of knowledge.

¹³Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.

¹⁴Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.

¹⁵My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:

¹⁶And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right.

¹⁷Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long:

¹⁸Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away.

¹⁹Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.

²⁰Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat:

²¹Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together shall be consumed; and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags.

²²Hearken to thy father, that beget thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old.

²³Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.

²⁴The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him.

²⁵Let thy father, and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee.

²⁶My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.

²⁷For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

²⁸She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill.

²⁹Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?

³⁰Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups.

³¹Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,

³²But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.

³³Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.