20 Wine produces mockers; alcohol leads to brawls.
    Those led astray by drink cannot be wise.

¹⁷ Those who love pleasure become poor;
    those who love wine and luxury will never be rich.

²⁰ Do not carouse with drunkards
    or feast with gluttons,
²¹ for they are on their way to poverty,
    and too much sleep clothes them in rags.

²⁹ Who has anguish? Who has sorrow?
    Who is always fighting? Who is always complaining?
    Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
³⁰ It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns,
    trying out new drinks.
³¹ Don’t gaze at the wine, seeing how red it is,
    how it sparkles in the cup, how smoothly it goes down.
³² For in the end it bites like a poisonous snake;
    it stings like a viper.
³³ You will see hallucinations,
    and you will say crazy things.
³⁴ You will stagger like a sailor tossed at sea,
    clinging to a swaying mast.
³⁵ And you will say, “They hit me, but I didn’t feel it.
    I didn’t even know it when they beat me up.
When will I wake up
    so I can look for another drink?”

⁴ It is not for kings, O Lemuel, to guzzle wine.
    Rulers should not crave alcohol.
⁵ For if they drink, they may forget the law
    and not give justice to the oppressed.
⁶ Alcohol is for the dying,
    and wine for those in bitter distress.
⁷ Let them drink to forget their poverty
    and remember their troubles no more.