| Chapter 23 |
1 | When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face.
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2 | And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power.
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3 | Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit.
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4 | Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.
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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.
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6 | Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats:
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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.
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8 | The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words.
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9 | Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech.
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10 | Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless:
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11 | For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee.
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12 | Let thy heart apply itself to instruction: and thy ears to words of knowledge.
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13 | Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.
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14 | Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.
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15 | My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:
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16 | And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right.
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17 | Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long:
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18 | Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away.
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19 | Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.
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20 | Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat:
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21 | 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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22 | Hearken to thy father, that beget thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old.
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23 | Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
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24 | The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him.
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25 | Let thy father, and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee.
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26 | My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.
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27 | For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
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28 | She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill.
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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?
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30 | Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups.
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31 | 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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32 | But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.
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33 | Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.
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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.
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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?
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