The Fear of Yahweh

1When you sit down to dine with a ruler,

Understand well [†]what is before you,

2So you should put a knife to your throat

If you are a man of appetite.

3Do not desire his delicacies,

For it is bread of falsehood.

4Do not weary yourself to gain wealth,

Because of your understanding, cease!

5Do you make your eyes fly up to see it? But it is not there!

Because it certainly makes itself wings

Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.

6Do not eat the bread of [†]a selfish man,

And do not desire his delicacies;

7For as he [†]calculates in his soul, so he is.

“Eat and drink!” he says to you,

But his heart is not with you.

8You will vomit up [†]the morsel you have eaten,

And you will corrupt your pleasant words.

9Do not speak in the [†]hearing of a fool,

For he will despise the insight of your speech.

10Do not move the ancient boundary

And do not come into the fields of the orphans,

11For their Redeemer is strong;

He will plead their case against you.

12Bring your heart to discipline

And your ears to [†]words of knowledge.

13Do not withhold discipline from the child,

Although you [†]strike him with the rod, he will not die.

14You shall [†]strike him with the rod

And deliver his soul from Sheol.

15My son, if your heart is wise,

My own heart also will be glad;

16And my [†]inmost being will exult

When your lips speak upright things.

17Do not let your heart be jealous of sinners,

But be zealous in the [†]fear of Yahweh [†]always.

18Surely there is a [†]future,

And your hope will not be cut off.

19You, my son, listen and be wise,

And direct your heart in the way.

20Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine,

Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;

21For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty,

And drowsiness will clothe them with rags.

22Listen to your father who begot you,

And do not despise your mother when she is old.

23Buy truth, and do not sell it,

Get wisdom and discipline and understanding.

24The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice,

And he who begets a wise son will be glad in him.

25Let your father and your mother be glad,

And let her rejoice who gave birth to you.

26Give your heart to me, my son,

And let your eyes [†]delight in my ways.

27For a harlot is a deep pit

And [†]a foreign woman is a narrow well.

28Surely she lies in wait as a robber,

And adds to the treacherous among men.

29Who has woe? Who has sorrow?

Who has contentions? Who has complaining?

Who has wounds without cause?

Who has redness of eyes?

30Those who linger long over wine,

Those who go to search out mixed wine.

31Do not look on the wine when it glistens red,

When it [†]sparkles in the cup,

When it goes down smoothly;

32At the end—like a serpent it bites,

And like a viper it stings.

33Your eyes will see strange things

And your heart will speak perverse things.

34And you will be like one who lies down in the heart of the sea,

Or like one who lies down on the top of a [†]mast.

35“They struck me, but I did not become [†]ill;

They beat me, but I did not know it.

When shall I awake?

I will seek yet another.”