Proverbs 23:1-35 LSB

[1] When you sit down to dine with a ruler, Understand well what is before you, [2] So you should put a knife to your throat If you are a man of appetite. [3] Do not desire his delicacies, For it is bread of falsehood. [4] Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, Because of your understanding, cease! [5] Do you make your eyes fly up to see it? But it is not there! Because it certainly makes itself wings Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens. [6] Do not eat the bread of a selfish man, And do not desire his delicacies; [7] For as he calculates in his soul, so he is. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you. [8] You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten, And you will corrupt your pleasant words. [9] Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, For he will despise the insight of your speech. [10] Do not move the ancient boundary And do not come into the fields of the orphans, [11] For their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their case against you. [12] Bring your heart to discipline And your ears to words of knowledge. [13] Do not withhold discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die. [14] You shall strike him with the rod And deliver his soul from Sheol. [15] My son, if your heart is wise, My own heart also will be glad; [16] And my inmost being will exult When your lips speak upright things. [17] Do not let your heart be jealous of sinners, But be zealous in the fear of Yahweh always. [18] Surely there is a future, And your hope will not be cut off. [19] You, my son, listen and be wise, And direct your heart in the way. [20] Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat; [21] For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe them with rags. [22] Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old. [23] Buy truth, and do not sell it, Get wisdom and discipline and understanding. [24] The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, And he who begets a wise son will be glad in him. [25] Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her rejoice who gave birth to you. [26] Give your heart to me, my son, And let your eyes delight in my ways. [27] For a harlot is a deep pit And a foreign woman is a narrow well. [28] Surely she lies in wait as a robber, And adds to the treacherous among men. [29] Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? [30] Those who linger long over wine, Those who go to search out mixed wine. [31] Do not look on the wine when it glistens red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly; [32] At the end—like a serpent it bites, And like a viper it stings. [33] Your eyes will see strange things And your heart will speak perverse things. [34] And you will be like one who lies down in the heart of the sea, Or like one who lies down on the top of a mast. [35] “They struck me, but I did not become ill; They beat me, but I did not know it. When shall I awake? I will seek yet another.”