1When you sit down to eat with a ruler, Look well what is before you;

2And put a knife to your throat If you are a man given to appetite.

3Do not desire his delicacies, For that food is deceptive.

4Do not labour to be rich. Cease from your own understanding!

5Do you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle to the heavens.

6Do not eat the bread of one having an evil eye, Nor desire his delicacies;

7For as he reckons in his life, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.

8You vomit the piece you have eaten, And lose your sweet words.

9Do not speak in the ears of a fool, For he treads on the wisdom of your words.

10Do not move the ancient boundary, And do not enter the fields of the fatherless;

11For their Redeemer is strong; He shall plead their cause against you.

12Bring your heart to discipline, And your ears to words of knowledge.

13Do not withhold discipline from a child; If you beat him with a rod, he does not die.

14Beat him with a rod And deliver his being from the grave.

15My son, if your heart shall be wise, My heart rejoices, even I,

16And my kidneys exult When your lips speak what is straight.

17Do not let your heart envy sinners, But be in the fear of יהוה all day long;

18For certain, there is a hereafter, And let your expectancy not be cut off.

19Hear, my son, and be wise, And guide your heart in the way.

20Be not among heavy drinkers of wine Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;

21For the drunkard and the glutton become poor, And slumber puts rags on a man.

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

23Buy the truth and do not sell it – Wisdom and discipline and understanding.

24The father of the righteous greatly rejoices, And he who brings forth a wise one delights in him.

25Let your father and your mother rejoice, And let her who bore you exult.

26My son, give me your heart, And let your eyes watch my ways.

27For a whore is a deep pit, And a strange woman is a narrow well.

28She too lies in wait as for a prey, And increases the treacherous among men.

29Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who feels hurt without cause? Who has redness of eyes?

30Those staying long at the wine, Those going in to search out mixed wine.

31Do not look on the wine when it is red, When it gives its colour in the cup, As it flows smoothly;

32In the end it bites like a snake, And stings like an adder –

33Your eyes look on strange women, And your heart speaks perversities.

34And you shall be as one Lying down in the midst of the sea, And as one lying at the top of the mast, saying,

35“They smote me, I was not sick! They beat me, I did not know! When shall I wake up? Let me seek it again!”