1When you sit to eat with a ruler, Consider diligently him who is before you;
2And put a knife to your throat, If you are a man given to appetite.
3Do not be desirous of his delicacies; Seeing they are deceitful food.
4Do not weary yourself to be rich; Cease from your own wisdom.
5Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings, Like an eagle that flies toward heaven.
6Do not eat the bread of him who has an evil eye, Nor desire his delicacies:
7For as he thinks within himself, so is he: Eat and drink, says he to you; But his heart is not with you.
8The morsel which you have eaten you shall vomit up, And lose your sweet words.
9Do not speak in the hearing of a fool; For he will despise the wisdom of your words.
10Do not remove the ancient landmark; And do not enter into the fields of the fatherless:
11For their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their cause against you.
12Apply your heart to instruction, And your ears to the words of knowledge.
13Do not withhold correction from the child; For if you beat him with the rod, he will not die.
14You shall beat him with the rod, And shall deliver his soul from Sheol.
15My son, if your heart is wise, My heart will be glad, even mine:
16Yes, my heart will rejoice, When your lips speak right things.
17Do not let your heart envy sinners; But continue in the fear of Yehovah all the day long:
18For surely there is a reward; And your hope shall not be cut off.
19Hear, my son, and be wise, And guide your heart in the way.
20Do not be among drunkards, Among gluttonous eaters of meat:
21For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.
22Listen to your father who fathered you, And do not despise your mother when she is old.
23Buy the truth, and do not sell it; Yes, wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
24The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; And he who fathers a wise child will have joy in him.
25Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her who bore you rejoice.
26My son, give me your heart; And let your eyes delight in my ways.
27For a prostitute is a deep ditch; And a foreign woman is a narrow pit.
28Yes, she lies in wait as a robber, And increases the treacherous among men.
29Who has woe? who has sorrow? who has contentions? Who has complaining? who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
30Those who linger long at the wine; Those who go to seek out mixed wine.
31Do not look at the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly:
32At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like an adder.
33Your eyes shall behold strange things, And your heart shall utter perverse things.
34Yes, you shall be as he who lies down in the midst of the sea, Or as he who lies on the top of a mast.
35They have struck me, you shall say, and I was not hurt; They have beaten me, and I did not feel it: When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.