1
|
When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face:
|
2
|
And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power.
|
3
|
Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit.
|
4
|
Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.
|
5
|
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.
|
6
|
Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats:
|
7
|
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.
|
8
|
The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words.
|
9
|
Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech.
|
10
|
Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless:
|
11
|
For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee.
|
12
|
Let thy heart apply itself to instruction and thy ears to words of knowledge.
|
13
|
Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.
|
14
|
Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.
|
15
|
My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:
|
16
|
And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right.
|
17
|
Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long:
|
18
|
Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away.
|
19
|
Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.
|
20
|
Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat:
|
21
|
Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together, shall be consumed: and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags.
|
22
|
Hearken to thy father, that begot thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old.
|
23
|
Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
|
24
|
The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him.
|
25
|
Let thy father and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee.
|
26
|
My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.
|
27
|
For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
|
28
|
She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill.
|
29
|
Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
|
30
|
Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups.
|
31
|
Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,
|
32
|
But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.
|
33
|
Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.
|
34
|
And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep when the stern is lost.
|
35
|
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?
|