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¹ When you sit to eat with a ruler, Consider diligently him that is before you;² And put a knife to your throat, If you are a man given to appetite.³ Don't be desirous of his dainties; Seeing they are deceitful food.

⁴ Don't weary yourself to be rich; Cease from your own wisdom.⁵ Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For [riches] certainly make themselves wings, Like an eagle that flies toward heaven.

⁶ Don't eat the bread of him that has an evil eye, Neither desire his dainties:⁷ For as he thinks inside himself, so he is: Eat and drink, he says to you; But his heart is not with you.⁸ The morsel which you have eaten you shall vomit up, And lose your sweet words.

⁹ Don't speak in the hearing of a fool; For he will despise the wisdom of your words.

¹⁰ Don't remove the ancient landmark; And don't enter into the fields of the fatherless:¹¹ For their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their cause against you.

¹² Apply your heart to instruction, And your ears to the words of knowledge.¹³ Don't withhold correction from the child; [For] if you beat him with the rod, he will not die.¹⁴ You shall beat him with the rod, And shall deliver his soul from Sheol.¹⁵ My son, if your heart be wise, My heart will be glad, even mine:¹⁶ Yes, my heart will rejoice, When your lips speak right things.

¹⁷ Don't let your heart envy sinners; But [be] in the fear of Yahweh all the day long:¹⁸ For surely there is a reward; And your hope shall not be cut off.

¹⁹ Hear, my son, and be wise, And guide your heart in the way.²⁰ Don't be among winebibbers, Among gluttonous eaters of flesh:²¹ For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; And drowsiness will clothe [a man] with rags.²² Listen to your father that begot you, And don't despise your mother when she is old.²³ Buy the truth, and don't sell it; [Yes], wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.²⁴ The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; And he that begets a wise child will have joy of him.²⁵ Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her that bore you rejoice.²⁶ My son, give me your heart; And let your eyes delight in my ways.²⁷ For a prostitute is a deep ditch; And a foreign woman is a narrow pit.²⁸ Yes, she lies in wait as a robber, And increases the traitors among man.

²⁹ Who has woe? who has sorrow? who has contentions? Who has complaining? who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?³⁰ Those that tarry long at the wine; Those that go to seek out mixed wine.³¹ Don't look on the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly:³² At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like an adder.³³ Your eyes shall see strange things, And your heart shall utter perverse things.³⁴ Yes, you shall be as he that lies down in the midst of the sea, Or as he that lies on the top of a mast.³⁵ They have stricken 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.