Proverbs 23:8-33

⁸Thou shalt spew out the meat, which thou hast eaten; and thou shalt lose thy fair words.

⁹Speak thou not in the ears of unwise men; for they shall despise the teaching of thy speech.

¹⁰Touch thou not the terms, or the boundary stones, of little children; and enter thou not into the field of fatherless and motherless children.

¹¹For the neighbour of them is strong, and he shall deem their cause against thee.

¹²Thine heart enter to teaching, and thine ears to the words of knowing.

¹³Do not thou withdraw chastising or discipline, from a child; for though thou smitest him with a rod, he shall not die.

¹⁴Thou shalt smite him with a rod, and thou shalt deliver his soul from hell.

¹⁵My son, if thy soul is wise, mine heart shall have joy with thee;

¹⁶and my reins shall make full out joy, when thy lips speak rightful or right things.

¹⁷Thine heart pursue or follow not sinners; but be thou in the dread of the Lord all day.

¹⁸For thou shalt have hope at the last, and thine abiding shall not be done away.

¹⁹My son, hear thou, and be wise, and address thy soul in the way.

²⁰Do not thou be in the feasts of drinkers, neither in the oft eatings of them, that bring together fleshes to eat.

²¹For men giving attention to drinks, and giving morsels together, shall be wasted, and napping shall be clothed with clothes rent.

²²Hear thy father, that begat thee; and despise not thy mother, when she is eld.

²³Buy thou truth, and do not thou sell wisdom, and doctrine, and understanding.

²⁴The father of a just or rightwise man joyeth full out with joy; he that begat a wise man, shall be glad in him.

²⁵Thy father and thy mother have joy, and he that begat thee, make full out joy.

²⁶My son, give thine heart to me, and thine eyes keep my ways.

²⁷For a whore is a deep ditch, and an alien woman, is a strait pit.

²⁸She setteth ambush in the way, as a thief; and shall add despisers in men, that is, shall multiply despisers of God among men.

²⁹To whom is woe? to whose father is woe? to whom be chidings? to whom be ditches? to whom be wounds without cause? to whom is putting out of eyes?

³⁰Whether not to them, that dwell in wine, and study to drink up all of cups?

³¹Behold thou not the wine, when it sparkleth, when the colour thereof shineth in a glass cup. It entereth sweetly,

³²but at the last it shall bite as an adder, and as a cockatrice it shall shed abroad venoms.

³³Thine eyes shall see strange women, and thy heart shall speak wayward things.