Proverbs 23

1When you sit down to dine with a ruler, carefully consider what is before you.

2and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite.

3Do not crave his delicacies, for it is deceptive food.

4Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the good sense to stop.

5No sooner do you set your eyes on it than it is gone, for it surely makes wings for itself and flies to the sky like an eagle.

6Do not eat the food of a stingy person, and do not crave his delicacies.

7For as he calculates within himself, so he is: “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

8You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten, and you will waste your pleasant words.

9Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the good sense in your words.

10Do not move an ancient boundary marker, and do not enter the fields of orphans,

11for their redeemer is strong; he will plead their case against you.

12Apply your heart to instruction, and your ear to words of knowledge.

13Do not withhold discipline from a boy, for if you strike him with the rod, he will not die.

14You are to strike him with the rod, and you will deliver his life from Sheol.

15My son, if your heart is wise, my heart also will rejoice.

16and my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right.

17Do not let your heart envy sinners; instead, fear Yahweh all day long.

18For surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

19Listen, my son, and be wise; guide your heart along the way.

20Do not be among heavy drinkers of wine or among those who gorge themselves on meat,

21For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe them in rags.

22Listen to your father, who fathered you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

23Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, instruction, and understanding.

24The father of a righteous man will greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.

25Let your father and your mother be glad, and let she who gave birth to you rejoice.

26My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes delight in my ways.

27For a prostitute is a deep pit, and a foreign woman is a narrow well.

28Indeed, she lies in wait like a robber, and she increases the treacherous among men.

29Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds for nothing? Who has redness of eyes?

30For those who linger over wine, for those who come to search out mixed wine.

31Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly.

32In the end it bites like a snake, and it stings like a viper.

33Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will speak perverse things.

34And you will be like one lying down in the heart of the sea, like one lying at the top of a mast.

35“They struck me, but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not know it. When shall I awake? I will seek it again.”