| 23 | Proverbs | Passage |
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| 1 |
If you take your seat at a great man's table, take careful note of what you have before you;
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| 2 |
if you have a big appetite put a knife to your throat.
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| 3 |
Do not hanker for his delicacies, for they are deceptive food.
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| 4 |
Do not wear yourself out in quest of wealth, stop applying your mind to this.
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| 5 |
Fix your gaze on it, and it is there no longer, for it is able to sprout wings like an eagle that flies off to the sky.
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| 6 |
Do not eat the food of anyone whose eye is jealous, do not hanker for his delicacies.
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| 7 |
For what he is really thinking about is himself: 'Eat and drink,' he tells you, but his heart is not with you.
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| 8 |
You will spit out whatever you have eaten and find your compliments wasted.
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| 9 |
Do not waste words on a fool, who will not appreciate the shrewdness of your remarks.
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| 10 |
Do not displace the ancient boundary-stone, or encroach on orphans' lands,
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| 11 |
for they have a powerful avenger, and he will take up their cause against you.
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| 12 |
Apply your heart to discipline, and your ears to instructive sayings.
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| 13 |
Do not be chary of correcting a child, a stroke of the cane is not likely to be fatal.
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| 14 |
Give him a stroke of the cane, you will save his soul from Sheol.
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| 15 |
My child, if your heart is wise, then my own heart is glad,
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| 16 |
and my inmost self rejoices when from your lips come honest words.
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| 17 |
Do not let your heart be envious of sinners but remain steady every day in the fear of Yahweh;
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| 18 |
for there is a future, and your hope will not come to nothing.
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| 19 |
Listen, my child, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way.
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| 20 |
Do not be one of those forever tippling wine nor one of those who gorge themselves with meat;
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| 21 |
for the drunkard and glutton impoverish themselves, and sleepiness is clothed in rags.
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| 22 |
Listen to your father from whom you are sprung, do not despise your mother in her old age.
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| 23 |
Purchase truth—never sell it-wisdom, discipline, and discernment.
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| 24 |
The father of the upright will rejoice indeed, he who fathers a wise child will have joy of it.
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| 25 |
Your father and mother will be happy, and she who bore you joyful.
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| 26 |
My child, pay attention to me, let your eyes take pleasure in my way:
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| 27 |
a prostitute is a deep pit, a narrow well, the woman who belongs to another.
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| 28 |
Yes, like a brigand, she lies in wait, increasing the number of law-breakers.
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| 29 |
For whom is pity, for whom contempt, for whom is strife, for whom complaint, for whom blows struck at random, for whom the clouded eye?
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| 30 |
For those who linger over wine too long, ever on the look-out for the blended liquors.
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| 31 |
Do not gaze at wine, how red it is, how it sparkles in the cup! How smoothly it slips down the throat!
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| 32 |
In the end its bite is like a serpent's, its sting as sharp as an adder's.
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| 33 |
Your eyes will see peculiar things, you will talk nonsense from your heart.
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| 34 |
You will be like someone sleeping in mid-ocean, like one asleep at the mast-head.
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| 35 |
'Struck me, have they? But I'm not hurt. Beaten me? I don't feel anything. When shall I wake up? . . I'll ask for more of it!'
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