---
title: Proverbs 23
slug: kjv/proverbs-23
createdAt: 2024-08-21T03:34:59.768Z
---

**1 **When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what *is* before thee:

**2 **And put a knife to thy throat, if thou *be* a man given to appetite.

**3 **Be not desirous of his dainties: for they *are* deceitful meat.

**4 **Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom.

**5 **Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for *riches* certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.

**6 **Eat thou not the bread of *him that hath* an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats:

**7 **For as he thinketh in his heart, so *is* he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart *is* not with thee.

**8 **The morsel *which* thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.

**9 **Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.

**10 **Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

**11 **For their redeemer *is* mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.

**12 **Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.

**13 **Withhold not correction from the child: for *if* thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.

**14 **Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

**15 **My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.

**16 **Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.

**17 **Let not thine heart envy sinners: but *be thou* in the fear of the LORD all the day long.

**18 **For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.

**19 **Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.

**20 **Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:

**21 **For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe *a man* with rags.

**22 **Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.

**23 **Buy the truth, and sell *it* not; *also* wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.

**24 **The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise *child* shall have joy of him.

**25 **Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.

**26 **My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.

**27 **For a whore *is* a deep ditch; and a strange woman *is* a narrow pit.

**28 **She also lieth in wait as *for* a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.

**29 **Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?

**30 **They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

**31 **Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, *when* it moveth itself aright.

**32 **At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

**33 **Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

**34 **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.

**35 **They have stricken me, *shalt thou say, and* I was not sick; they have beaten me, *and* I felt *it* not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.