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23:1  When you sit down to dine with a ruler, mark well the one who is before you;
23:2  Stick the knife in your gullet if you have a ravenous appetite.
23:3  Do not desire his delicacies; it is food that deceives.
23:4  Do not wear yourself out to gain wealth, cease to be worried about it;
23:5  When your glance flits to it, it is gone! For assuredly it grows wings, like the eagle that flies toward heaven.
23:6  Do not take food with unwilling hosts, and do not desire their delicacies;
23:7  For like something stuck in the throat is that food. “Eat and drink,” they say to you, but their hearts are not with you;
23:8  The little you have eaten you will vomit up, and you will have wasted your agreeable words.
23:9  Do not speak in the hearing of fools; they will despise the wisdom of your words.
23:10  Do not remove the ancient landmark, nor invade the fields of the fatherless;
23:11  For their redeemer is strong; he will defend their cause against you.
23:12  Apply your heart to instruction, and your ear to words of knowledge.
23:13  Do not withhold discipline from youths; if you beat them with the rod, they will not die.
23:14  Beat them with the rod, and you will save them from Sheol.
23:15  My son, if your heart is wise, my heart also will rejoice;
23:16  And my inmost being will exult, when your lips speak what is right.
23:17  Do not let your heart envy sinners, but only those who always fear the Lord;
23:18  For you will surely have a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
23:19  Hear, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart in the right way.
23:20  Do not join with wine bibbers, nor with those who glut themselves on meat.
23:21  For drunkards and gluttons come to poverty, and lazing about clothes one in rags.
23:22  Listen to your father who begot you, do not despise your mother when she is old.
23:23  Buy truth and do not sell: wisdom, instruction, understanding!
23:24  The father of a just person will exult greatly; whoever begets a wise son will rejoice in him.
23:25  Let your father and mother rejoice; let her who bore you exult.
23:26  My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes keep to my ways,
23:27  For the harlot is a deep pit, and the foreign woman a narrow well;
23:28  Yes, she lies in wait like a robber, and increases the number of the faithless.
23:29  Who scream? Who shout? Who have strife? Who have anxiety? Who have wounds for nothing? Who have bleary eyes?
23:30  Whoever linger long over wine, whoever go around quaffing wine.
23:31  Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup. It goes down smoothly,
23:32  but in the end it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.
23:33  Your eyes behold strange sights, and your heart utters incoherent things;
23:34  You are like one sleeping on the high seas, sprawled at the top of the mast.
23:35  “They struck me, but it did not pain me; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When can I get up, when can I go out and get more?”