Proverbs 23:1 - 23:35 | ASV

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¹When 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.

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