23 When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
    observe carefully what[a] is before you,
and put a knife to your throat
    if you are given to appetite.
(A)Do not desire his delicacies,
    for they are deceptive food.
(B)Do not toil to acquire wealth;
    (C)be discerning enough to desist.
When your eyes light on it, it is gone,
    (D)for suddenly it sprouts wings,
    flying like an eagle toward heaven.
(E)Do not eat the bread of a man who is (F)stingy;[b]
    (G)do not desire his delicacies,
for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.[c]
    “Eat and drink!” he says to you,
    but his (H)heart is not with you.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 23:1 Or who
  2. Proverbs 23:6 Hebrew whose eye is evil
  3. Proverbs 23:7 Or for as he calculates in his soul, so is he

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