23:1. When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently
what is set before thy face:
23:2. And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy
soul in thy own power.
23:3. Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit.
23:4. Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.
23:5. Lift not up thy eyes to riches which thou canst not have: because
they shall make themselves wings like those of an eagle, and shall fly
towards heaven.
23:6. Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats:
23:7. Because, like a soothsayer, and diviner, he thinketh that which
he knoweth not. Eat and drink, will he say to thee: and his mind is not
with thee.
23:8. The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt
loose thy beautiful words.
23:9. Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the
instruction of thy speech.
23:10. Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the
field of the fatherless:
23:11. For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause
against thee.
23:12. Let thy heart apply itself to instruction and thy ears to words
of knowledge.
23:13. Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him
with the rod, he shall not die.
23:14. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from
hell.
23:15. My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:
23:16. And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is
right.
23:17. Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the
Lord all the day long:
23:18. Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy
expectation shall not be taken away.
23:19. Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.
23:20. Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings,
who contribute flesh to eat:
23:21. Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club
together, shall be consumed: and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags.
23:22. Hearken to thy father, that begot thee: and despise not thy
mother when she is old.
23:23. Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and
understanding.
23:24. The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten
a wise son, shall have joy in him.
23:25. Let thy father and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice
that bore thee.
23:26. My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.
23:27. For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow
pit.
23:28. She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall
see unwary, she will kill.
23:29. Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who
falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of
eyes?
23:30. Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink off
their cups.
23:31. Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour
thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,
23:32. But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread
abroad poison like a basilisk.
23:33. Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter
perverse things.
23:34. And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and
as a pilot fast asleep when the stern is lost.
23:35. And thou shalt say: They have beaten me, but I was not sensible
of pain: they drew me, and I felt not: when shall I awake and find wine
again?