Proverbs 23 When you sit down to eat with a ruler, look carefully at what is before you,

LITV⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ When you sit down to eat with a ruler, look carefully at what is before you, ² and put a knife to your throat if you are an owner of an appetite. ³ Do not desire his delicacies, for it is the bread of lies. ⁴ Do not labor to be rich, cease from your own understanding. ⁵ Will your eyes fly on it? And it is not! For surely it makes wings for itself, it flies into the heavens like an eagle. ⁶ Do not eat the bread of one having an evil eye, and do not desire his delicacies, ⁷ for as he thinks in his heart, so is he! He says to you, Eat and drink, but his heart is not with you. ⁸ You shall vomit the bit you have eaten and spoil your pleasant words. ⁹ Do not speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the good sense of your words. ¹⁰ Do not move the old landmark, and do not enter into the fields of the fatherless, ¹¹ for their Redeemer is mighty, He will contend for their cause with you. ¹² Bring your heart in for instruction, and your ears to the words of knowledge. ¹³ Do not withhold correction from a boy, for if you strike him with the rod, he will not die. ¹⁴ You shall beat him with the rod, and you shall deliver him from Sheol. ¹⁵ My son, if your heart is wise, my heart shall rejoice, even I. ¹⁶ And my reins shall rejoice when your lips speak right things. ¹⁷ Do not let your heart envy sinners, but only be in the fear of Jehovah all the day. ¹⁸ For surely there is a hereafter, and your hope shall not be cut off. ¹⁹ My son, hear you, and be wise, and advance your heart in the way. ²⁰ Be not among heavy drinkers of wine, with flesh gluttons to themselves, ²¹ for the drunkard and the glutton lose all, and sleepiness shall clothe one with rags. ²² Listen to your father, this one sired you, and do not despise your 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 who fathers a wise one shall even be glad in him. ²⁵ Your father and your mother shall be glad, and she who bore you shall rejoice. ²⁶ My son, give Me your heart, and let your eyes watch My ways. ²⁷ For a harlot is a deep pit, and a strange woman is a narrow well. ²⁸ Surely she lies in wait, as for prey, and she increases the treacherous among men. ²⁹ Who has woe, who sorrow? Who has contentions, who has babbling? Who has wounds without cause? Who has dullness of eyes? ³⁰ those who stay long at the wine, those who go to seek mixed wine. ³¹ Do not look at the wine when it is red, when it gives its color in the cup, when it goes down smoothly, ³² at its last it bites like a snake, and it stings like a basilisk. ³³ Your eyes shall look on strange women, and your heart shall speak perverse things; ³⁴ yes, you shall be as one who lies down in the middle of the sea, or as he who lies on the top of a mast, ³⁵ saying, They struck me! I was not sick! They beat me, yet I did not know. When I awaken I will add to it, I will still seek it.