Chapter 23
1 When you sit down to dine with a ruler,
mark well the one who is before you;
2 Stick the knife in your gullet
if you have a ravenous appetite.
3 Do not desire his delicacies;
it is food that deceives.
4 Do not wear yourself out to gain wealth,
cease to be worried about it;
5 When your glance flits to it, it is gone!
For assuredly it grows wings,
like the eagle that flies toward heaven.
6 Do not take food with unwilling hosts,
and do not desire their delicacies;
7 For like something stuck in the throat is that food.
“Eat and drink,” they say to you,
but their hearts are not with you;
8 The little you have eaten you will vomit up,
and you will have wasted your agreeable words.
9 Do not speak in the hearing of fools;
they will despise the wisdom of your words.(A)
10 Do not remove the ancient landmark,(B)
nor invade the fields of the fatherless;
11 For their redeemer is strong;
he will defend their cause against you.(C)
12 Apply your heart to instruction,
and your ear to words of knowledge.
13 Do not withhold discipline from youths;
if you beat them with the rod, they will not die.(D)
14 Beat them with the rod,(E)
and you will save them from Sheol.
15 My son, if your heart is wise,
my heart also will rejoice;
16 And my inmost being will exult,
when your lips speak what is right.
17 Do not let your heart envy sinners,(F)
but only those who always fear the Lord;
18 For you will surely have a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.(G)
19 Hear, my son, and be wise,
and guide your heart in the right way.
20 Do not join with wine bibbers,
nor with those who glut themselves on meat.
21 For drunkards and gluttons come to poverty,
and lazing about clothes one in rags.
22 Listen to your father who begot you,
do not despise your mother when she is old.
23 Buy truth and do not sell:
wisdom, instruction, understanding!
24 The father of a just person will exult greatly;
whoever begets a wise son will rejoice in him.(H)
25 Let your father and mother rejoice;
let her who bore you exult.
26 My son, give me your heart,
and let your eyes keep to my ways,
27 For the harlot is a deep pit,
and the foreign woman a narrow well;
28 Yes, she lies in wait like a robber,(I)
and increases the number of the faithless.
29 Who scream? Who shout?
Who have strife? Who have anxiety?
Who have wounds for nothing?
Who have bleary eyes?
30 Whoever linger long over wine,
whoever go around quaffing wine.(J)
31 Do not look on the wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup.
It goes down smoothly,
32 but in the end it bites like a serpent,
and stings like an adder.
33 Your eyes behold strange sights,
and your heart utters incoherent things;
34 You are like one sleeping on the high seas,
sprawled at the top of the mast.
35 “They struck me, but it did not pain me;
they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When can I get up,
when can I go out and get more?”
Footnotes
- 23:1–9
- 23:2
- 23:5
- 23:6–8
- 23:10
- 23:13–14
- 23:17
- 23:22–23
- 23:26–28
- 23:29–35
- 23:35
Cross references
- 23:9 : Prv 9:7.
- 23:10 : Prv 22:28.
- 23:11 : Prv 22:23.
- 23:13 : Prv 13:24; 19:18; Sir 30:1.
- 23:14 : Prv 29:15, 17.
- 23:17 : Prv 3:31; 24:1, 19.
- 23:18 : Prv 24:14.
- 23:24 : Prv 10:1.
- 23:28 : Prv 7:10–27.
- 23:30 : Prv 20:1; Sir 19:2; Hos 4:11.
