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

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

Today’s Reading

Proverbs
Chapter 23
When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee:

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.