King James Version
Proverbs • Chapter 23
1
When you sit to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you.
2
And you shall place a knife in your hand if you are a master of the soul.
3
Do not desire his delicacies, for they are deceptive food.
4
Do not touch the rich; cease from your understanding.
5
You will not lift your eyes towards it, for it will do for him as wings like an eagle, and he will fly in the heavens.
6
Do not eat the bread of a bad eye, and do not desire his delicacies.
7
For just as he ponders in his soul, so he will eat and drink; he will say to you, and his heart is not with you.
8
You have eaten and you will vomit; you have spoiled your pleasant words.
9
In the ears of a fool do not speak, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.
10
Do not remove ancient boundaries, and do not enter the fields of orphans.
11
For your Redeemer is strong; He will plead your cause with you.
12
Bring instruction to your heart and your ears to the words of knowledge.
13
Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.
14
You, with the rod, shall shepherd us, and from death, you will deliver our soul.
15
If my heart is wise, your heart will also rejoice; indeed, I too.
16
And let your kidneys rejoice when you speak your straight words.
17
Do not let your heart envy sinners, but be in the fear of the Lord all the day.
18
For there is a future, and your hope shall not be cut off.
19
Hear, you son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way.
20
Do not be among wine drinkers, among gluttonous eaters of flesh.
21
For a glutton and a drunkard will inherit, and rags will clothe the lazy.
22
Hear, my son, your father, and do not despise your mother when she is old.
23
Acquire truth and do not sell wisdom, instruction, and understanding.
24
The joyful one will rejoice, my father the righteous will give birth, and the wise will be happy and will rejoice in him.
25
Your father will rejoice, and your mother will be glad; she who bore you will exult.
26
Give your heart to me, and your eyes will desire my ways.
27
For the deep pit is a prostitute, and a narrow well is a foreign woman.
28
She also lies in wait like a thief, and the treacherous men add to their deceit.
29
Woe to whom? Woe to whom? Woe to whom? For quarrels of Midian. To whom is there free wounds? To whom are there blackened eyes?
30
For the latecomers to the wine, to those who seek the mixture.
31
Do not look at wine when it sparkles, when it gives its color in the cup; it goes down smoothly.
32
At the end, it will bite like a serpent and will sting like a viper.
33
Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will speak perverse things.
34
And you shall be like one lying in the heart of the sea and like one lying at the head of a pile.
35
They struck me, but I am not ill; they laid a plot against me, but I did not know when I will awake; I will continue to seek again.