1When thou sittest to eat with the prince, perceive thou diligently what things be set before thy face,

2and set thou a coulter in thy throat. If nevertheless thou hast power on thy soul,

3desire thou not of his meats, in whom is the bread of lying.

4Do not thou travail to be made rich, but set thou measure to thy prudence.

5Raise not thine eyes to riches, which thou mayest not have; for those [or they] shall make to them-selves pens or wings, as of an eagle, and they shall fly into heaven.

6Eat thou not with an envious man, and desire thou not his meats;

7for at the likeness of a false diviner, and of a conjecturer, that is, expounder of dreams, he guesseth that, that he knoweth not. He shall say to thee, Eat thou and drink; and his soul is not with thee.

8Thou shalt spew out the meat, which thou hast eaten; and thou shalt lose thy fair words.

9Speak thou not in the ears of unwise men; for they shall despise the teaching of thy speech.

10Touch thou not the terms, or the boundary stones, of little children; and enter thou not into the field of fatherless and motherless children.

11For the neighbour of them is strong, and he shall deem their cause against thee.

12Thine heart enter to teaching, and thine ears to the words of knowing.

13Do not thou withdraw chastising or discipline, from a child; for though thou smitest him with a rod, he shall not die.

14Thou shalt smite him with a rod, and thou shalt deliver his soul from hell.

15My son, if thy soul is wise, mine heart shall have joy with thee;

16and my reins shall make full out joy, when thy lips speak rightful [or right] things.

17Thine heart pursue [or follow] not sinners; but be thou in the dread of the Lord all day.

18For thou shalt have hope at the last, and thine abiding shall not be done away.

19My son, hear thou, and be wise, and address thy soul in the way.

20Do not thou be in the feasts of drinkers, neither in the oft eatings of them, that bring together fleshes to eat.

21For men giving attention to drinks, and giving morsels together, shall be wasted, and napping shall be clothed with clothes rent.

22Hear thy father, that begat thee; and despise not thy mother, when she is eld.

23Buy thou truth, and do not thou sell wisdom, and doctrine, and understanding.

24The father of a just [or rightwise] man joyeth full out with joy; he that begat a wise man, shall be glad in him.

25Thy father and thy mother have joy, and he that begat thee, make full out joy.

26My son, give thine heart to me, and thine eyes keep my ways.

27For a whore is a deep ditch, and an alien woman, is a strait pit.

28She setteth ambush in the way, as a thief; and shall add despisers in men, that is, shall multiply despisers of God among men.

29To whom is woe? to whose father is woe? to whom be chidings? to whom be ditches? to whom be wounds without cause? to whom is putting out of eyes?

30Whether not to them, that dwell in wine, and study to drink [up] all of cups?

31Behold thou not [the] wine, when it sparkleth, when the colour thereof shineth in a glass cup. It entereth sweetly,

32but at the last it shall bite as an adder, and as a cockatrice it shall shed abroad venoms.

33Thine eyes shall see strange women, and thy heart shall speak wayward things.

34And thou shalt be as a man sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a governor asleeped [or sleeping], when the steering, either the instrument of governance, is lost.

35And thou shalt say, They beat me, but I had not sorrow; they drew me, and I feeled not; when shall I wake out, and I shall find wines again?