The FarAboveAll translation of the Old Testament from the Masoretic Hebrew and Aramaic (WLC). See details on www.FarAboveAll.com.

Version 0.35.76, 26 August 2024

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Proverbs Chapter 23

1When you sit down to dine with a ruler,

Be well aware of who it is before you,

2And put a knife to your throat

If you have a keen appetite.

3Do not be desirous of his delicacies,

For they are beguiling food.

4Do not exhaust yourself to become rich;

Cease from your own understanding.

5Do you fix your eye on a thing,

Then it is gone?

For it easily gives itself wings,

And like an eagle, it flies off into the sky.

6Do not eat food from a malevolent person,

And do not be desirous of his delicacies.

7For as he assesses a matter inwardly,

So he is.

“Eat and drink”,

He will say to you,

But his heart will not be with you.

8The morsel which you have eaten,

You will vomit out,

And you will spoil your pleasant conversation.

9Do not speak to the ears of a fool,

For he will despise the insightfulness of your words.

10Do not move an age-old boundary marker,

And do not go into the fields of orphans,

11For their redeemer is strong;

He will defend their case against you.

12Dispose your heart to instruction,

And your ears to learned sayings.

13Do not withhold correction from a youth;

When you beat him with a rod,

He will not die.

14You may be beating him with a rod,

But you will be saving him from the grave.

15My son, if your heart becomes wise,

My heart will rejoice – it really will –

16And my kidneys will exult,

As your lips speak upright words.

17Do not let your heart be envious of sinners,

But rather let it be zealous of fear of the Lord

All day long.

18For there is a final state,

And your hope will not be cut off.

19Do hear, my son, and become wise,

And direct your heart on the way.

20Do not be among those who become drunk on wine,

Or who take to guzzling meat.

21For the drunkard and guzzler will be dispossessed,

And slumber will clothe them with rags.

22Listen to your father

Who begot you,

And do not despise your mother

When she is old.

23Acquire truth,

And do not sell it,

As with wisdom and instruction and understanding.

24The father of a righteous son will greatly rejoice,

And he who begets a wise son

Will delight in him.

25Your father and your mother will take delight,

And she who bore you will rejoice.

26My son, give your heart to me,

And may your eyes welcome my ways.

27For a prostitute is a deep abyss,

And a foreign woman is a narrow pit.

28Indeed she lies in wait like a predator

And adds to the traitors among men.

29Who has “woe”,

Who has “alas” on his lips?

Who has contentions,

Who has a grievance,

Who has gratuitous wounds?

Who has reddened eyes?

30It is those who linger at wine

– Those who come to sample blended liquor.

31Do not care for wine

– When it exhibits its red colour,

When it gives its sparkle in a goblet,

And when it flows smoothly.

32Its effect is that it bites like a serpent

And puts one in torment like a viper.

33Your eyes will see women who are strangers,

And your heart will speak subversive things,

34And you will be like one who lies at the bottom of the sea,

Or one who lies at the top of a mast.

35“They beat me,

But I did not feel pain;

They struck me,

But I was not conscious of it.

When will I wake up?

I will seek this pleasure yet again.”

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