✧When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what [is] before thee: ✧2And put a knife to thy throat, if thou [be] a man given to appetite. ✧3Be not desirous of his dainties: for they [are] deceitful meat. ✧4Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. ✧5Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for [riches] certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven. ✧6Eat thou not the bread of [him that hath] an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: ✧7For as he thinketh in his heart, 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 ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. ✧10Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless: ✧11For their redeemer [is] mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee. ✧12Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge. ✧13Withhold not correction from the child: for [if] thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. ✧14Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. ✧15My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. ✧16Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things. ✧17Let not thine heart envy sinners: but [be thou] in the fear of the LORD all the day long. ✧18For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off. ✧19Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. ✧20Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: ✧21For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall 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; [also] wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. ✧24The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise [child] shall have joy of him. ✧25Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice. ✧26My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. ✧27For a whore [is] a deep ditch; and a strange woman [is] a narrow pit. ✧28She also lieth in wait as [for] a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men. ✧29Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? ✧30They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. ✧31Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, [when] it moveth itself aright. ✧32At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. ✧33Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine 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 sick; they have beaten me, [and] I felt [it] not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.