hen thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee:
. .2 And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.
. .3 Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.
. .4 Labour not to be rich: cease according to thine own wisdom.
. .5 When thine eyes are set upon them, they are not: for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
. .6 Eat thou not the bread of a niggard, neither desire thou his dainty meats:
. .7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
. .8 The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and waste thy pleasant words.
. .9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.
. .10 Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
. .11 For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.
. .12 Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.
. .13 Withhold not discipline from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
. .14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from death.
. .15 My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart also shall rejoice.
. .16 Yea, my innermost parts shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.
. .17 Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long.
. .18 For surely there is a morrow, and thine expectation shall not be cut off.
. .19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.
. .20 Be not among winebibbers, or among gluttonous eaters of flesh:
. .21 For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
. .22 Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.
. .23 Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
. .24 The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.
. .25 Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.
. .26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.
. .27 For a whore is a deep pit; and an adulterous woman is a narrow well.
. .28 Surely she lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the unfaithful among men.
. .29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath complaining? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
. .30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
. .31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its sparkle in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly.
. .32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
. .33 Thine eyes shall behold strange things, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
. .34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
. .35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.