Listen to Your Father
Consider carefully what is before you;
2 And put a knife to your throat
If you are a man given to appetite.
3 Do not desire his delicacies,
For they are deceptive food.
Because of your own understanding, cease!
5 [a]Will you set your eyes on that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings;
They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Nor desire his delicacies;
7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
“Eat and drink!” he says to you,
But his heart is not with you.
8 The morsel you have eaten, you will vomit up,
And waste your pleasant words.
For he will despise the wisdom of your words.
Nor enter the fields of the fatherless;
11 For their Redeemer is mighty;
He will plead their cause against you.
And your ears to words of knowledge.
For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.
14 You shall beat him with a rod,
And deliver his soul from [d]hell.
My heart will rejoice—indeed, I myself;
16 Yes, my [e]inmost being will rejoice
When your lips speak right things.
But be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day;
18 For surely there is a [f]hereafter,
And your hope will not be cut off.
And guide your heart in the way.
20 Do not mix with winebibbers,
Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;
21 For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.
And do not despise your mother when she is old.
Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.
And he who begets a wise child will delight in him.
25 Let your father and your mother be glad,
And let her who bore you rejoice.
And let your eyes observe my ways.
27 For a harlot is a deep pit,
And a seductress is a narrow well.
28 She also lies in wait as for a victim,
And increases the unfaithful among men.
Who has sorrow?
Who has contentions?
Who has complaints?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?
30 Those who linger long at the wine,
Those who go in search of mixed wine.
31 Do not look on the wine when it is red,
When it sparkles in the cup,
When it [g]swirls around smoothly;
32 At the last it bites like a serpent,
And stings like a viper.
33 Your eyes will see strange things,
And your heart will utter perverse things.
34 Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the [h]midst of the sea,
Or like one who lies at the top of the mast, saying:
35 “They have struck me, but I was not hurt;
They have beaten me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?”
Footnotes
- Proverbs 23:5 Lit. Will you cause your eyes to fly upon it and it is not?
- Proverbs 23:6 Lit. one who has an evil eye
- Proverbs 23:10 boundary
- Proverbs 23:14 Or Sheol
- Proverbs 23:16 Lit. kidneys
- Proverbs 23:18 Future, lit. latter end
- Proverbs 23:31 goes around
- Proverbs 23:34 Lit. heart