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The Book of Proverbs
Chapter 23
 1 |
When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face: |
2 |
And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power. |
3 |
Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit. |
4 |
Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence. |
5 |
Lift not up thy eyes to riches which thou canst not have: because they shall make themselves wings like those of an eagle, and shall fly towards heaven. |
6 |
Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats: |
7 |
Because, like a soothsayer, and diviner, he thinketh that which he knoweth not. Eat and drink, will he say to thee: and his mind is not with thee. |
8 |
The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words. |
9 |
Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech. |
10 |
Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless: |
11 |
For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee. |
12 |
Let thy heart apply itself to instruction and thy ears to words of knowledge. |
13 |
Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. |
14 |
Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell. |
15 |
My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee: |
16 |
And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right. |
17 |
Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long: |
18 |
Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away. |
19 |
Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way. |
20 |
Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat: |
21 |
Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together, shall be consumed: and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags. |
22 |
Hearken to thy father, that begot thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old. |
23 |
Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. |
24 |
The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him. |
25 |
Let thy father and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee. |
26 |
My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways. |
27 |
For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit. |
28 |
She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill. |
29 |
Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? |
30 |
Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink off their cups. |
31 |
Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly, |
32 |
But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk. |
33 |
Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things. |
34 |
And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep when the stern is lost. |
35 |
And thou shalt say: They have beaten me, but I was not sensible of pain: they drew me, and I felt not: when shall I awake and find wine again? |
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