The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Book of Proverbs
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Chapter 23
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1
When thou art sitting at table with a prince, mark well what is set before thee,
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and, have thou thy appetite under control, guard as with a drawn knife thy gullet.
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Hanker thou never after those good things of his; they are bait to lure thee.✻
4
Do not be at pains to amass riches; let thy scheming✻ have its bounds.
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Never let thy eyes soar to the wealth that is beyond thy reach, eagle-winged against thy pursuit.
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Shun the niggard’s table; not for thee his dainties.
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Abstracted he sits, like soothsayer brooding over false dreams; Eat and drink, he tells thee, but his mind is far away.
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For that grudged food thou wilt have no stomach; all gracious speech will die away on thy tongue.✻
9
Speak not with fools for thy hearers; of thy warning utterance they will reck nothing.
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Leave undisturbed the landmarks of friendless folk, nor encroach on the orphan’s patrimony;
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a strong Champion they have, to grant them redress.
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Still let thy heart be attentive to warnings, open be thy ear to words of instruction.
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Nor ever from child of thine withhold chastisement; he will not die under the rod;
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rather, the rod thou wieldest shall baulk the grave of its prey.
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Wise heart of thine, my son, is glad heart of mine;
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speak thou aright, all my being thrills.
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Do not envy sinners their good fortune, but abide in the fear of the Lord continually;
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the future holds blessings for thee, never shall that hope play thee false.
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Listen, then, my son, and shew thyself wise, keeping still an even course.
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Be not of their company, that drink deep and pile the dishes high at their revels;
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ruined they shall be, sot and trencherman, and wake from their drunken sleep to find themselves dressed in rags.
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Thine to obey the father who begot thee, nor leave thy mother without reverence in her grey hairs;
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truth to covet, hold wisdom, and self-command, and discernment for treasured heirlooms.
24
Joy there is and pride in an upright man’s begetting for the glad father of a wise son;
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such joy let thy father have, such pride be hers, the mother who bore thee!
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My son, give me the gift of thy heart, scan closely the path I shew thee.
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What pit so deep as the harlot’s greed, what snare holds so close as wanton wife?
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Like a footpad she lurks beside the way, a deadly peril to all that forget their troth.
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Unhappy son of an unhappy father, who is this, ever brawling, ever falling, scarred but not from battle, blood-shot of eye?
30
Who but the tosspot that sits long over his wine?
31
Look not at the wine’s tawny glow, sparkling there in the glass beside thee; how insinuating its address!
32
Yet at last adder bites not so fatally, poison it distils like the basilisk’s own.
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Eyes that stray to forbidden charms, a mind uttering thoughts that are none of thine,
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shall make thee helpless as mariner asleep in mid ocean, when the tiller drops from the helmsman’s drowsy grasp.
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What! thou wilt say, blows all unfelt, wounds that left no sting! Could I but come to myself, and be back, even now, at my wine!
