1 When you sit to eat with a ruler, Consider diligently him who 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 who 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 will 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 will beat him with the rod, And will 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 will 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 will come to poverty; And drowsiness will clothe [a man] with rags.
22 Listen to your father who 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 who begets a wise child will have joy of him.
25 Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her who 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 betrayers 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 who tarry long at the wine; Those who 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 will see strange things, And your heart will utter perverse things.
34 Yes, you will be as he who lies down in the midst of the sea, Or as he who lies on the top of a mast.
35 They have stricken me, [you will 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.