¹ When you sit down to eat with a leader, pay close attention to what has been set before your face,

² and put a knife to your throat, if, in such a way, you could hold your soul in your own power.

³ Do not desire his foods, in which is the bread of deceit.

⁴ Do not be willing to labor so that you may be enriched. But set limits by your prudence.

⁵ Do not raise your eyes toward wealth that you are not able to have. For they will make themselves wings, like those of an eagle, and they will fly in the sky.

⁶ Do not eat with an envious man, and do not desire his foods.

⁷ For, like a seer and an interpreter of dreams, he presumes what he does not know. “Eat and drink,” he will say to you; and his mind is not with you.

⁸ The foods that you had eaten, you will vomit up. And you will lose the beauty in your words.

⁹ Do not speak into the ears of the unwise. They will despise the doctrine of your eloquence.

¹⁰ Do not touch the boundaries of little ones, and do not enter into the field of the fatherless.

¹¹ For their close relative is strong, and he will judge their case against you.

¹² Let your heart enter into doctrine, and let your ears enter into words of knowledge.

¹³ Do not be willing to take away discipline from a child. For if you strike him with the rod, he will not die.

¹⁴ You will strike him with the rod, and so shall you deliver his soul from Hell.

¹⁵ My son, if your soul will become wise, my heart will be glad with you.

¹⁶ And my temperament will exult, when your lips will have spoken what is upright.

¹⁷ Let not your heart compete with sinners. But be in the fear of the Lord all day long.

¹⁸ For you will have hope in the end, and your expectation will not be taken away.

¹⁹ Listen, my son, and be wise, and direct your soul along the way.

²⁰ Do not be willing to be in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in the carousings of those who gather to feed on flesh.

²¹ For those who waste time drinking, and who surrender themselves to symbols, will be consumed. And those who sleep will be clothed in rags.

²² Listen to your father, who conceived you. And do not despise your mother, when she is old.

²³ Purchase truth, and do not sell wisdom, or doctrine, or understanding.

²⁴ The father of the just exults in gladness; he who has conceived the wise will rejoice in him.

²⁵ Let your father and your mother be joyful, and may she who conceived you exult.

²⁶ My son, offer me your heart, and let your eyes keep to my ways.

²⁷ For a loose woman is a deep pit, and a foreign woman is a constricted well.

²⁸ She lies in wait along the way like a robber. And the incautious one whom she sees, she will put to death.

²⁹ Who has woe? Whose father has woe? Who has quarrels? Who falls into pits? Who has wounds without cause? Who has watery eyes?

³⁰ Is it not those who linger over wine, and who strive to be drinking from their cups?

³¹ Do not gaze into the wine when it turns gold, when its color shines in the glass. It enters pleasantly,

³² but in the end, it will bite like a snake, and it will spread poison like a king of snakes.¹

1. 23:32The word ‘regulus’ means ‘little king’ but refers to a poisonous snake or similar creature, perhaps even a mythological one.(Conte)

³³ Your eyes will see women who are outsiders, and your heart will utter perversities.

³⁴ And you will be like someone sleeping in the middle of the sea, and like a pilot, fast asleep, who has lost his hold on the helm.

³⁵ And you will say: “They have beaten me, but I did not feel pain. They have dragged me, and I did not realize it. When will I awaken and find more wine?”