Chapter 23

  When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face.  

  And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power.  

  Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit.  

  Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.  

  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.  

  Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats:  

  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.  

  The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words.  

  Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech.  

  Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless:  

  For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee.  

  Let thy heart apply itself to instruction: and thy ears to words of knowledge.  

  Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.  

  Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.  

  My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:  

  And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right.  

  Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long:  

  Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away.  

  Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.  

  Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat:  

  Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together shall be consumed; and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags.  

  Hearken to thy father, that beget thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old.  

  Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.  

  The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him.  

  Let thy father, and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee.  

  My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.  

  For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.  

  She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill.  

  Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?  

  Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups.  

  Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,  

  But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.  

  Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.  

  And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep, when the stern is lost.  

  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?