Proverbs 23
Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
Proverbs 23 opens with table manners before a ruler, warning against desiring another man's dainties, then broadens into fatherly appeals to apply the heart to instruction and to buy the truth and sell it not. It also repeats the earlier call to withhold not correction from a child, continuing the parenting theme just covered in Proverbs 22.
When thou sittest to eate with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee,
And put the knife to thy throte, if thou be a man giuen to the appetite.
Be not desirous of his deintie meates: for it is a deceiuable meate.
Trauaile not too much to be rich: but cease from thy wisdome.
Wilt thou cast thine eyes vpon it, which is nothing? for riches taketh her to her wings, as an eagle, and flyeth into the heauen.
Eate thou not the bread of him that hath an euil eye, neither desire his deintie meates.
For as though he thought it in his heart, so will hee say vnto thee, Eate and drinke: but his heart is not with thee.
Thou shalt vomit thy morsels that thou hast eaten, and thou shalt lose thy sweete wordes.
Speake not in the eares of a foole: for hee will despise the wisdome of thy wordes.
Remooue not the ancient boundes, and enter not into the fieldes of the fatherlesse.
For he that redeemeth them, is mightie: he will defend their cause against thee.
Apply thine heart to instruction, and thine eares to the wordes of knowledge.
Withhold not correction from the childe: if thou smite him with the rodde, he shall not die.
Thou shalt smite him with the rodde, and shalt deliuer his soule from hell.
My sonne, if thine heart be wise, mine heart shall reioyce, and I also.
And my reynes shall reioyce, when thy lips speake righteous things.
Let not thine heart bee enuious against sinners: but let it bee in the feare of the Lord continually.
For surely there is an ende, and thy hope shall not be cut off.
O thou my sonne, heare, and bee wise, and guide thine heart in the way.
Keepe not company with drunkards, nor with gluttons.
For the drunkard and the glutton shall bee poore, and the sleeper shalbe clothed with ragges.
Obey thy father that hath begotten thee, and despise not thy mother when she is olde.
Bye the trueth, but sell it not: likewise wisdome, and instruction, and vnderstanding.
The father of the righteous shall greatly reioyce, and hee that begetteth a wise childe, shall haue ioy of him.
Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall reioyce.
My sonne, giue mee thine heart, and let thine eyes delite in my wayes.
For a whore is as a deepe ditche, and a strange woman is as a narrowe pitte.
Also she lyeth in wait as for a praye, and she increaseth the transgressers among men.
To whome is woe? to whome is sorowe? to whom is strife? to whom is murmuring? to whom are woundes without cause? and to whome is the rednesse of the eyes?
Euen to them that tarie long at the wine, to them that goe, and seeke mixt wine.
Looke not thou vpon the wine, when it is red, and when it sheweth his colour in the cup, or goeth downe pleasantly.
In the ende thereof it will bite like a serpent, and hurt like a cockatrise.
Thine eyes shall looke vpon strange women, and thine heart shall speake lewde things.
And thou shalt bee as one that sleepeth in the middes of the sea, and as hee that sleepeth in the toppe of the maste.
They haue stricken mee, shalt thou say, but I was not sicke: they haue beaten mee, but I knew not, when I awoke: therefore will I seeke it yet still.