Proverbs 23
1 When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face.
When you sit to eat with a ruler, Diligently consider that which [is] before you,
2 And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power.
And you have put a knife to your throat, If you [are] a man of appetite.
3 Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit.
Have no desire to his delicacies, seeing it [is] lying food.
4 Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.
Do not labor to make wealth, Cease from your own understanding, Do you cause your eyes to fly on it? Then it is not.
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.
For wealth makes wings to itself, It flies to the heavens as an eagle.
6 Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats:
Do not eat the bread of an evil eye, And have no desire to his delicacies,
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.
For as he has thought in his soul, so he [is]. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, And his heart [is] not with you.
8 The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words.
You vomit up your morsel you have eaten, And have marred your words that [are] sweet.
9 Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech.
Do not speak in the ears of a fool, For he treads on the wisdom of your words.
10 Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless:
Do not remove a border of ancient times, And do not enter into fields of the fatherless,
11 For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee.
For their Redeemer [is] strong, He pleads their cause with you.
12 Let thy heart apply itself to instruction: and thy ears to words of knowledge.
Bring your heart to instruction, And your ear to sayings of knowledge.
13 Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.
Do not withhold discipline from a youth, When you strike him with a rod he does not die.
You strike him with a rod, And you deliver his soul from Sheol. (Sheol h7585)
15 My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:
My son, if your heart has been wise, My heart rejoices, even mine,
16 And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right.
And my reins exult when your lips speak uprightly.
17 Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long:
Do not let your heart be envious at sinners, But—in the fear of YHWH all the day.
18 Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away.
For is there a posterity? Then your hope is not cut off.
19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.
Hear, my son, and be wise, And make your heart blessed in the way,
20 Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat:
Do not become drunk with wine, Among gluttonous ones of flesh,
21 Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together shall be consumed; and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags.
For the drunkard and glutton become poor, And drowsiness clothes with rags.
22 Hearken to thy father, that beget thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old.
Listen to your father, who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she has become old.
23 Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
Buy truth, and do not sell, Wisdom, and instruction, and understanding,
24 The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him.
The father of the righteous rejoices greatly, The begetter of the wise rejoices in him.
25 Let thy father, and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee.
Your father and your mother rejoice, Indeed, she bearing you is joyful.
26 My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.
Give, my son, your heart to me, And let your eyes watch my ways.
27 For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
For a harlot [is] a deep ditch, And a strange woman [is] a narrow pit.
28 She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill.
She also, as catching prey, lies in wait, And she increases the treacherous among men.
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?
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaint? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
30 Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups.
Those lingering by the wine, Those going in to search out mixed wine.
31 Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,
Do not see wine when it shows itself red, When it gives its color in the cup, It goes up and down through the upright.
32 But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.
Its latter end—it bites as a serpent, And it stings as a viper.
33 Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.
Your eyes see strange women, And your heart speaks perverse things.
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.
And you have been as one lying down in the heart of the sea, And as one lying down on the top of a mast.
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?
“They struck me, I have not been sick, They beat me, I have not known. When I awake—I seek it yet again!”
