Proverbs 23:1-28 ▼

1 When you sit to eat with a ruler, || Diligently consider that which [is] before you,

2 And you have put a knife to your throat, || If you [are] a man of appetite.

3 Have no desire to his delicacies, seeing it [is] lying food.

4 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 For wealth makes wings to itself, || It flies to the heavens as an eagle.

6 Do not eat the bread of an evil eye, || And have no desire to his delicacies,

7 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 You vomit up your morsel you have eaten, || And have marred your words that [are] sweet.

9 Do not speak in the ears of a fool, || For he treads on the wisdom of your words.

10 Do not remove a border of ancient times, || And do not enter into fields of the fatherless,

11 For their Redeemer [is] strong, || He pleads their cause with you.

12 Bring your heart to instruction, || And your ear to sayings of knowledge.

13 Do not withhold discipline from a youth, || When you strike him with a rod he does not die.

14 You strike him with a rod, || And you deliver his soul from Sheol.

15 My son, if your heart has been wise, || My heart rejoices, even mine,

16 And my reins exult when your lips speak uprightly.

17 Do not let your heart be envious at sinners, || But—in the fear of YHWH all the day.

18 For is there a posterity? Then your hope is not cut off.

19 Hear, my son, and be wise, || And make your heart blessed in the way,

20 Do not become drunk with wine, || Among gluttonous ones of flesh,

21 For the drunkard and glutton become poor, || And drowsiness clothes with rags.

22 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,

24 The father of the righteous rejoices greatly, || The begetter of the wise rejoices in him.

25 Your father and your mother rejoice, || Indeed, she bearing you is joyful.

26 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.

28 She also, as catching prey, lies in wait, || And she increases the treacherous among men.