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.”