23
📚When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
carefully consider what 📖 is
before you,
2 📚And put a knife to your throat,
if you are a man given
to appetite.
3 📚Do not desire his delicacies,
for it is deceptive food.
23:1-3 He means, perhaps, that if a ruler asks us to dine with him he may be planning to use us for his own purposes and those purposes may be deceptive and evil.⚜
4 📚Do not wear yourself out
to get rich.
Cease from your own wisdom.
5 📚Will you set your eyes on it?
It is no longer there,
for surely riches make wings
for themselves;
they fly away 📖 like an eagle in the sky.
6 📚Do not eat the food of him whose
eye is evil,
or desire his delicacies.
7 📚For as he thinks in his heart,
so is he. “Eat and drink”,
he says to you,
but his heart is not with you.
23:7 The first phrase might possibly be translated “for as he puts on a feast, so he is”.⚜
8 The morsel you have eaten
you will vomit up,
and waste your compliments.
23:6-8 Seeing insincerity and hypocrisy makes an honest man sick.⚜
9 📚Do not speak in the ears of a fool,
for he will despise the wisdom
of your words.
10 📚Do not remove the ancient
boundary stone and encroach
on the fields of the fatherless,
11 📚For their redeemer is mighty.
He will plead their cause with you.
23:10-11 Prov 22:23, 28. Redeemer here is a translation of the Hebrew word “goel”. See notes at Ruth 2:20; Ps 78:35.⚜
12 📚Apply your heart to instruction,
and your ears to the words of knowledge.
13 📚Do not withhold correction
from the child; for if you beat him
with the rod, he will not die.
14 📚You beat him with the rod,
and rescue his soul from hell.
15 📚My son, if your heart is wise,
my own heart too will rejoice.
16 📚Yes, my inmost being will rejoice
when your lips speak right things.
17 📚Do not let your heart envy 📖 sinners,
but be in the fear 📖 of the LORD
all day long.
18 📚For surely there is a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.
19 📚Listen, my son, and be wise,
and guide your heart in the way.
20 📚Do not be with those
who drink too much wine,
with those who are gluttons in eating meat,
21 📚For the drunkard and the glutton
will come to poverty,
and drowsiness will clothe
a person with rags.
23:19-21 Wisdom should guide us in what we eat and drink and how much. Drunkenness and gluttony are condemned in the Bible and will face God’s anger and punishment – Prov 23:2; 28:7; Rom 13:13-14; 1 Cor 6:10; Gal 5:21.⚜
22 📚Listen to your father who begot you,
and do not despise your mother
when she is old.
23 📚Buy the truth and do not sell it,
also wisdom and instruction
and understanding.
24 📚The father of the righteous
will greatly rejoice,
and he who begets a wise child
will have joy in him.
25 📚Your father and your mother
will be glad,
and she who gave you birth will rejoice.
26 📚My son, give me your heart 📖,
and keep your eyes on my ways.
27 📚For a prostitute is
a deep ditch,
and an adulteress is
a narrow pit.
28 📚She also lies in wait like a robber,
and increases the transgressors
among men.
29 📚Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
Who has strife? Who has babbling?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?
30 📚Those who linger long at the wine,
those who go in search of mixed wine.
31 📚Do not look at the wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup,
when it goes down smoothly.
32 📚At last it will bite like a serpent,
and sting like a viper.
33 📚Your eyes will see strange things
and your mind will utter perverse things.
34 📚Yes, you will be like one lying down
in the middle of the sea,
or like one who lies down on the top of a mast.
35 📚“They hit me”,
you will say, “but I am not hurt!
They have beaten me,
but I didn’t feel it!
When will I wake up?
I will look for another drink”.
23:29-35 A striking warning against drunkenness. Strong drink may seem pleasant at first (v 31), but it is poison (v 32), and has very bitter fruits. One of these is that the drunkard when he recovers a little wants to indulge again and again in the same thing that is ruining his life.⚜