When thou sittest to eat with a ruler,
Consider diligently {Or, what}him that is before thee;
{Or, For thou wilt put}And put a knife to thy throat,
If thou be a man given to appetite.
Be not desirous of his dainties;
Seeing they are deceitful food.
Weary not thyself to be rich;
Cease {Or, by reason of thine own understanding}from thine own wisdom.
{Or, Wilt thou set thine eyes upon it? it is gone Hebrew: Shall thine eyes fly upon it, and it is not?}Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings,
Like an eagle that flieth toward heaven.
Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye,
Neither desire thou his dainties:
For {Or, as one that reckoneth}as he thinketh within himself, so is he:
Eat and drink, saith he to thee;
But his heart is not with thee.
The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up,
And lose thy sweet words.
Speak not in the hearing of a fool;
For he will despise the wisdom of thy words.
Remove not the ancient landmark;
And enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
For their Redeemer is strong;
He will plead their cause against thee.
Apply thy heart unto {Or, correction}instruction,
And thine ears to the words of knowledge.
Withhold not correction from the child;
For {Or, though}if thou beat him with the rod, he will not die.
Thou shalt beat him with the rod,
And shalt deliver his soul from Sheol.
My son, if thy heart be wise,
My heart will be glad, even mine:
Yea, my {Hebrew: reins.}heart will rejoice,
When thy lips speak right things.
Let not thy heart envy sinners;
But be thou in the fear of Jehovah all the day long:
For surely there is a {Or, sequel Or, future Hebrew: latter end.}reward;
And thy hope shall not be cut off.
Hear thou, my son, and be wise,
And guide thy heart in the way.
Be not among winebibbers,
Among gluttonous eaters of flesh:
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty;
And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.
Hearken unto thy father that begat thee,
And despise not thy mother when she is old.
Buy the truth, and sell it not;
Yea, wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;
And he that begetteth a wise child will have joy of him.
Let thy father and thy mother be glad,
And let her that bare thee rejoice.
My son, give me thy heart;
And let thine eyes {Another reading is, observe.}delight in my ways.
For a harlot is a deep ditch;
And a foreign woman is a narrow pit.
Yea, she lieth in wait {Or, as for a prey}as a robber,
And increaseth the treacherous among men.
Who hath {Hebrew: Oh!}woe? who hath {Hebrew: Alas!}sorrow? who hath contentions?
Who hath complaining? who hath wounds without cause?
Who hath {Or, darkness}redness of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine;
They that go to {Or, try}seek out mixed wine.
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red,
When it sparkleth in the cup,
When it {Or, moveth itself aright}goeth down smoothly:
At the last it biteth like a serpent,
And stingeth like an adder.
Thine eyes shall behold {Or, strange women}strange things,
And thy heart shall utter perverse things.
Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea,
Or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not hurt;
They have beaten me, and I felt it not:
When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
Querverweise zu Sprüche 23,34 Spr 23,34
and blessed be thy discretion, and blessed be thou, that hast kept me this day from bloodguiltiness, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.
For in very deed, as Jehovah, the God of Israel, liveth, who hath withholden me from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light so much as one man-child.
So David received of her hand that which she had brought him: and he said unto her, Go up in peace to thy house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person.
And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.
And it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, that his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.
And it came to pass about ten days after, that Jehovah smote Nabal, so that he died.
And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were piled up,The floods stood upright as a heap;The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea.
And when he had brought him down, behold, they were spread abroad over all the ground, eating and drinking, and dancing, {Or, amidst}because of all the great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Judah.
And David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, who rode upon camels and fled.
And Absalom commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now, when Amnon's heart is merry with wine; and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon, then kill him; fear not; have not I commanded you? be courageous, and be valiant.
And his servant Zimri, captain of half his chariots, conspired against him. Now he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, who was over the household in Tirzah:
And they went out at noon. But Ben-hadad was drinking himself drunk in the {Or, huts}pavilions, he and the kings, the thirty and two kings that helped him.
And the young men of the princes of the provinces went out first; and Ben-hadad sent out, and they told him, saying, There are men come out from Samaria.
And he said, Whether they are come out for peace, take them alive, or whether they are come out for war, taken them alive.
So these went out of the city, the young men of the princes of the provinces, and the army which followed them.
And they slew every one his man; and the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them: and Ben-hadad the king of Syria escaped {Or, with horse and horsemen}on a horse with horsemen.
And the king of Israel went out, and smote the horses and chariots, and slew the Syrians with a great slaughter.
And the prophet came near to the king of Israel, and said unto him, Go, strengthen thyself, and mark, and see what thou doest; for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee.
Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and wail, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark,
They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all:
But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare:
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
When they are saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall in no wise escape.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you {Some ancient authorities read as thieves.}as a thief:
for ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness;
so then let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober.
For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that are drunken are drunken in the night.