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¹ When you sit down to eat with a ruler, Consider carefully what is before you; ² And put a knife to your throat If you are a man given to appetite. ³ Do not desire his delicacies, For they are deceptive food.

⁴ Do not overwork to be rich; Because of your own understanding, cease! ⁵ Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.

⁶ Do not eat the bread of a miser, [fn] Nor desire his delicacies; ⁷ For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. "Eat and drink!" he says to you, But his heart is not with you. ⁸ The morsel you have eaten, you will vomit up, And waste your pleasant words.

⁹ Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, For he will despise the wisdom of your words.

¹⁰ Do not remove the ancient landmark, Nor enter the fields of the fatherless; ¹¹ For their Redeemer is mighty; He will plead their cause against you.

¹² Apply your heart to instruction, And your ears to words of knowledge. ¹³ Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. ¹⁴ You shall beat him with a rod,And deliver his soul from hell. [fn] ¹⁵ My son, if your heart is wise, My heart will rejoice--indeed, I myself; ¹⁶ Yes, my inmost being will rejoice When your lips speak right things.

¹⁷ Do not let your heart envy sinners, But be zealous for the fear of the LORD all the day; ¹⁸ For surely there is a hereafter, And your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁹ Hear, my son, and be wise; And guide your heart in the way. ²⁰ Do not mix with winebibbers, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat; ²¹ For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags. ²² Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old. ²³ Buy the truth, and do not sell it, Also wisdom and instruction and understanding. ²⁴ The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, And he who begets a wise child will delight in him. ²⁵ Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her who bore you rejoice. ²⁶ My son, give me your heart, And let your eyes observe my ways. ²⁷ For a harlot is a deep pit, And a seductress is a narrow well. ²⁸ She also lies in wait as for a victim, And increases the unfaithful among men.

²⁹ Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? ³⁰ Those who linger long at the wine, Those who go in search of mixed wine. ³¹ Do not look on the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it swirls around smoothly; ³² At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like a viper. ³³ Your eyes will see strange things, And your heart will utter perverse things. ³⁴ Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, Or like one who lies at the top of the mast, saying: ³⁵ "They have struck me, but I was not hurt; They have beaten me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?|"