23 When you sit to eat with a ruler,
    consider diligently what is before you;
² and put a knife to your throat,
    if you are a man given to appetite.
³ Be not desirous of his delicacies,
    for they are deceptive food.

⁴ Do not labor 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;
    they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.

⁶ Do not eat the bread of him who has an evil eye,
    neither desire his delicacies;
⁷ for as he thinks in his heart,
    so is he.
“Eat and drink!” he says to you,
    but his heart is not with you.
⁸ The morsel you have eaten, you will vomit up,
    and lose your sweet words.

⁹ Do not speak in the ears of a fool,
    for he will despise the wisdom of your words.

¹⁰ Do not remove the old landmark,
    nor enter the fields of the fatherless;
¹¹ for their Redeemer is mighty;
    He will plead their cause with you.

¹² Apply your heart to instruction,
    and your ears to the words of knowledge.

¹³ Do not withhold correction from a child,
    for if you beat him with the rod, he will not die.
¹⁴ You shall beat him with the rod,
    and deliver his soul from death.

¹⁵ My son, if your heart is wise,
    my heart will rejoice—even mine.
¹⁶ Yes, my inmost being will rejoice
    when your lips speak right things.

¹⁷ Do not let your heart envy sinners,
    but continue in the fear of the Lord all day long;
¹⁸ for surely there is an end,
    and your expectation will not be cut off.

¹⁹ Hear, my son, and be wise;
    and guide your heart in the way.
²⁰ Do not be among winebibbers,
    among riotous eaters of meat;
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 gave you life,
    and do not despise your mother when she is old.
²³ Buy the truth, and do not sell it,
    also wisdom and instruction and understanding.
²⁴ The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice,
    and he who fathers a wise child will have joy of him.
²⁵ Your father and your mother will be glad,
    and she who bore you will rejoice.

²⁶ My son, give me your heart,
    and let your eyes observe my ways.
²⁷ For a prostitute is a deep ditch,
    and a seductress is a narrow pit.
²⁸ She also lies in wait as for a prey,
    and increases the transgressors among men.

²⁹ Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
    Who has contentions? Who has babbling?
    Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
³⁰ Those who tarry long at the wine,
    those who go to seek mixed wine.
³¹ Do not look on the wine when it is red,
    when it sparkles in the cup,
    when it swirls around smoothly;
³² at the last it bites like a serpent,
    and stings like a viper.
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 upon the top of a mast.
³⁵ “They have stricken me,” you will say, “and I was not sick;
    they have beaten me, and I did not feel it.
When will I awake?
    I will seek it yet again.”