• The Fear of Yahweh

  • 1 When you sit down to dine with a ruler, Understand well what is before you,
  • 2 So you should put a knife to your throat If you are a man of appetite.
  • 3 Do not desire his delicacies, For it is bread of falsehood.
  • 4 Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, Because of your understanding, cease!
  • 5 Do you make your eyes fly up to see it? But it is not there! Because it certainly makes itself wings Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.
  • 6 Do not eat the bread of a selfish man, And do not desire his delicacies;
  • 7 For as he calculates in his soul, so he is. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.
  • 8 You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten, And you will corrupt your pleasant words.
  • 9 Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, For he will despise the insight of your speech.
  • 10 Do not move the ancient boundary And do not come into the fields of the orphans,
  • 11 For their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their case against you.
  • 12 Bring your heart to discipline And your ears to words of knowledge.
  • 13 Do not withhold discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.
  • 14 You shall strike him with the rod And deliver his soul from Sheol.
  • 15 My son, if your heart is wise, My own heart also will be glad;
  • 16 And my inmost being will exult When your lips speak upright things.
  • 17 Do not let your heart be jealous of sinners, But be zealous in the fear of Yahweh always.
  • 18 Surely there is a future, And your hope will not be cut off.
  • 19 You, my son, listen and be wise, And direct your heart in the way.
  • 20 Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;
  • 21 For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe them with rags.
  • 22 Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old.
  • 23 Buy truth, and do not sell it, Get wisdom and discipline and understanding.
  • 24 The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, And he who begets a wise son will be glad in him.
  • 25 Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her rejoice who gave birth to you.
  • 26 Give your heart to me, my son, And let your eyes delight in my ways.
  • 27 For a harlot is a deep pit And a foreign woman is a narrow well.
  • 28 Surely she lies in wait as a robber, And adds to the treacherous among men.
  • 29 Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
  • 30 Those who linger long over wine, Those who go to search out mixed wine.
  • 31 Do not look on the wine when it glistens red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly;
  • 32 At the end—like a serpent it bites, And like a viper it stings.
  • 33 Your eyes will see strange things And your heart will speak perverse things.
  • 34 And you will be like one who lies down in the heart of the sea, Or like one who lies down on the top of a mast.
  • 35 “They struck me, but I did not become ill; They beat me, but I did not know it. When shall I awake? I will seek yet another.”