23:1 When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what [is] before thee:

23:2 And put a knife to thy throat, if thou [be] a man given to appetite:

23:3 Be not desirous of his dainties: for they [are] deceitful meat:

23:4 Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom:

23:5 Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for [riches] certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven:

23:6 Eat thou not the bread of [him that hath] an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats:

23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so [is] he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart [is] not with thee:

23:8 The morsel [which] thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words:

23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words:

23:10 Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

23:11 For their redeemer [is] mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee:

23:12 Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge:

23:13 Withhold not correction from the child: for [if] thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die:

23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell:

23:15 My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine:

23:16 Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things:

23:17 Let not thine heart envy sinners: but [be thou] in the fear of the LORD all the day long:

23:18 For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off:

23:19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way:

23:20 Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:

23:21 For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe [a man] with rags:

23:22 Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old:

23:23 Buy the truth, and sell [it] not; [also] wisdom, and instruction, and understanding:

23:24 The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise [child] shall have joy of him:

23:25 Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice:

23:26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways:

23:27 For a whore [is] a deep ditch; and a strange woman [is] a narrow pit:

23:28 She also lieth in wait as [for] a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men:

23:29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes:

23:30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine:

23:31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, [when] it moveth itself aright:

23:32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder:

23:33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things:

23:34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast:

23:35 They have stricken me, [shalt thou say, and] I was not sick; they have beaten me, [and] I felt [it] not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again: