✧When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, Consider diligently him that is before thee; ✧2And put a knife to thy throat, If thou be a man given to appetite. ✧3Be not desirous of his dainties; Seeing they are deceitful food. ✧4Weary not thyself to be rich; Cease from thine own wisdom. ✧5Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For [riches] certainly make themselves wings, Like an eagle that flieth toward heaven. ✧6Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, Neither desire thou his dainties: ✧7For as he thinketh within himself, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; But his heart is not with thee. ✧8The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, And lose thy sweet words. ✧9Speak not in the hearing of a fool; For he will despise the wisdom of thy words. ✧10Remove not the ancient landmark; And enter not into the fields of the fatherless: ✧11For their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their cause against thee. ✧12Apply thy heart unto instruction, And thine ears to the words of knowledge. ✧13Withhold not correction from the child; [For] if thou beat him with the rod, he will not die. ✧14Thou shalt beat him with the rod, And shalt deliver his soul from Sheol. ✧15My son, if thy heart be wise, My heart will be glad, even mine: ✧16Yea, my heart will rejoice, When thy lips speak right things. ✧17Let not thy heart envy sinners; But [be thou] in the fear of Jehovah all the day long: ✧18For surely there is a reward; And thy hope shall not be cut off. ✧19Hear thou, my son, and be wise, And guide thy heart in the way. ✧20Be not among winebibbers, Among gluttonous eaters of flesh: ✧21For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; And drowsiness will clothe [a man] with rags. ✧22Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, And despise not thy mother when she is old. ✧23Buy the truth, and sell it not; [Yea], wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. ✧24The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; And he that begetteth a wise child will have joy of him. ✧25Let thy father and thy mother be glad, And let her that bare thee rejoice. ✧26My son, give me thy heart; And let thine eyes delight in my ways. ✧27For a harlot is a deep ditch; And a foreign woman is a narrow pit. ✧28Yea, she lieth in wait as a robber, And increaseth the treacherous among men. ✧29Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? Who hath complaining? who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? ✧30They that tarry long at the wine; They that go to seek out mixed wine. ✧31Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkleth in the cup, When it goeth down smoothly: ✧32At the last it biteth like a serpent, And stingeth like an adder. ✧33Thine eyes shall behold strange things, And thy heart shall utter perverse things. ✧34Yea, 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. ✧35They have stricken me, [shalt thou say], and I was not hurt; They have beaten me, and I felt it not: When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
American Standard Version (ASV). American Standard Version (1901). Public domain.