✧When you sit to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before you; ✧2put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to appetite. ✧3Don’t be desirous of his dainties, since they are deceitful food. ✧4Don’t weary yourself to be rich. In your wisdom, show restraint. ✧5Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky. ✧6Don’t eat the food of him who has a stingy eye, and don’t crave his delicacies, ✧7for as he thinks about the cost, so he is. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. ✧8You will vomit up the morsel which you have eaten and waste your pleasant words. ✧9Don’t speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words. ✧10Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless, ✧11for their Defender is strong. He will plead their case against you. ✧12Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to the words of knowledge. ✧13Don’t withhold correction from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die. ✧14Punish him with the rod, and save his soul from Sheol. ✧15My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad, even mine. ✧16Yes, my heart will rejoice when your lips speak what is right. ✧17Don’t let your heart envy sinners, but rather fear the LORD all day long. ✧18Indeed surely there is a future hope, and your hope will not be cut off. ✧19Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path! ✧20Don’t be among ones drinking too much wine, or those who gorge themselves on meat; ✧21for the drunkard and the glutton shall become poor; and drowsiness clothes them in rags. ✧22Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old. ✧23Buy the truth, and don’t sell it. Get wisdom, discipline, and understanding. ✧24The father of the righteous has great joy. Whoever fathers a wise child delights in him. ✧25Let your father and your mother be glad! Let her who bore you rejoice! ✧26My son, give me your heart; and let your eyes keep in my ways. ✧27For a prostitute is a deep pit; and a wayward wife is a narrow well. ✧28Yes, she lies in wait like a robber, and increases the unfaithful among men. ✧29Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? ✧30Those who stay long at the wine; those who go to seek out mixed wine. ✧31Don’t look at the 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 poisons like a viper. ✧33Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will imagine confusing things. ✧34Yes, you will be as he who lies down in the middle of the sea, or as he who lies on top of the rigging: ✧35“They hit me, and I was not hurt! They beat me, and I don’t feel it! When will I wake up? I can do it again. I will look for more.”