1When you sit to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before you:

2And put a knife to your throat, if you are a man given to appetite.

3Be not desirous of his delicacies: for they are deceitful food.

4Labor not to be rich: cease from your own wisdom.

5Will you set your eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.

6Eat not the bread of him that is stingy, neither desire you his delicacies:

7For as he thinks in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, says he to you; but his heart is not with you.

8The morsel which you have eaten shall you vomit up, and waste your sweet words.

9Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of your words.

10Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

11For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with you.

12Apply your heart unto instruction, and your ears to the words of knowledge.

13Withhold not correction from the child: for if you beat him with a rod, he shall not die.

14You shall beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from sheol.

15My son, if your heart is wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.

16Yea, my inmost being shall rejoice, when your lips speak right things.

17Let not your heart envy sinners: but be in the fear of the LORD all the day long.

18For surely there is a future hope; and your expectation shall not be cut off.

19Hear you, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way.

20Be not among winebibbers; among gluttonous eaters of meat:

21For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

22Hearken unto your father that begat you, and despise not your mother when she is old.

23Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.

24The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begets a wise child shall have joy in him.

25Your father and your mother shall be glad, and she that bore you shall rejoice.

26My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.

27For a harlot is a deep ditch; and a seductress is a narrow well.

28She also lies in wait as for a prey, and increases the unfaithful among men.

29Who has woe? who has sorrow? who has contentions? who has babbling? who has wounds without cause? who has redness of eyes?

30They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

31Look not you upon the wine when it is red, when it gives its color in the cup, when it moves itself aright.

32At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.

33Your eyes shall behold strange things, and your heart shall utter perverse things.

34Yea, you shall be as he that lies down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lies upon the top of a mast.

35They have stricken me, you shall 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.