1:
When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face.
2:
And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power.
3:
Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit.
4:
Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.
5:
Lift not up thy eyes to riches which thou canst not have: because they shall make themselves wings like those of an eagle, and shall fly towards heaven.
6:
Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats:
7:
Because like a soothsayer, and diviner, he thinketh that which he knoweth not. Eat and drink, will he say to thee: and his mind is not with thee.
8:
The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words.
9:
Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech.
10:
Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless:
11:
For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee.
12:
Let thy heart apply itself to instruction: and thy ears to words of knowledge.
13:
Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.
14:
Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.
15:
My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:
16:
And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right.
17:
Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long:
18:
Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away.
19:
Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.
20:
Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat:
21:
Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together shall be consumed; and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags.
22:
Hearken to thy father, that beget thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old.
23:
Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
24:
The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him.
25:
Let thy father, and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee.
26:
My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.
27:
For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
28:
She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill.
29:
Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
30:
Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups.
31:
Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,
32:
But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.
33:
Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.
34:
And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep, when the stern is lost.
35:
And thou shalt say: They have beaten me, but I was not sensible of pain: they drew me, and I felt not: when shall I awake, and find wine again?