Chapter 23

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

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

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

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

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  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.  

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

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  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.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  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?  

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