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Proverbs 23 :: Legacy Standard Bible (LSB)

The Fear of Yahweh

Pro 23:1

When you sit down to dine with a ruler,

Understand well [fn]what is before you,

Pro 23:2

So you should put a knife to your throat

If you are a man of appetite.

Pro 23:3

Do not desire his delicacies,

For it is bread of falsehood.

Pro 23:4

Do not weary yourself to gain wealth,

Because of your understanding, cease!

Pro 23:5

Do you make your eyes fly up to see it? But it is not there!

Because it certainly makes itself wings

Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.

Pro 23:6

Do not eat the bread of [fn]a selfish man,

And do not desire his delicacies;

Pro 23:7

For as he [fn]calculates in his soul, so he is.

“Eat and drink!” he says to you,

But his heart is not with you.

Pro 23:8

You will vomit up [fn]the morsel you have eaten,

And you will corrupt your pleasant words.

Pro 23:9

Do not speak in the [fn]hearing of a fool,

For he will despise the insight of your speech.

Pro 23:10

Do not move the ancient boundary

And do not come into the fields of the orphans,

Pro 23:11

For their Redeemer is strong;

He will plead their case against you.

Pro 23:12

Bring your heart to discipline

And your ears to [fn]words of knowledge.

Pro 23:13

Do not withhold discipline from the child,

Although you [fn]strike him with the rod, he will not die.

Pro 23:14

You shall [fn]strike him with the rod

And deliver his soul from Sheol.

Pro 23:15

My son, if your heart is wise,

My own heart also will be glad;

Pro 23:16

And my [fn]inmost being will exult

When your lips speak upright things.

Pro 23:17

Do not let your heart be jealous of sinners,

But be zealous in the [fn]fear of Yahweh [fn]always.

Pro 23:18

Surely there is a [fn]future,

And your hope will not be cut off.

Pro 23:19

You, my son, listen and be wise,

And direct your heart in the way.

Pro 23:20

Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine,

Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;

Pro 23:21

For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty,

And drowsiness will clothe them with rags.

Pro 23:22

Listen to your father who begot you,

And do not despise your mother when she is old.

Pro 23:23

Buy truth, and do not sell it,

Get wisdom and discipline and understanding.

Pro 23:24

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice,

And he who begets a wise son will be glad in him.

Pro 23:25

Let your father and your mother be glad,

And let her rejoice who gave birth to you.

Pro 23:26

Give your heart to me, my son,

And let your eyes [fn]delight in my ways.

Pro 23:27

For a harlot is a deep pit

And [fn]a foreign woman is a narrow well.

Pro 23:28

Surely she lies in wait as a robber,

And adds to the treacherous among men.

Pro 23:29

Who has woe? Who has sorrow?

Who has contentions? Who has complaining?

Who has wounds without cause?

Who has redness of eyes?

Pro 23:30

Those who linger long over wine,

Those who go to search out mixed wine.

Pro 23:31

Do not look on the wine when it glistens red,

When it [fn]sparkles in the cup,

When it goes down smoothly;

Pro 23:32

At the end—like a serpent it bites,

And like a viper it stings.

Pro 23:33

Your eyes will see strange things

And your heart will speak perverse things.

Pro 23:34

And you will be like one who lies down in the heart of the sea,

Or like one who lies down on the top of a [fn]mast.

Pro 23:35

“They struck me, but I did not become [fn]ill;

They beat me, but I did not know it.

When shall I awake?

I will seek yet another.”

LSB Footnotes
Or who
Lit an evil eye
Lit reckons in his soul
Lit your
Lit ears
Lit sayings
Lit smite
Lit smite
Lit kidneys
Or reverence
Lit all the day
Lit latter end
Or observe
Or an adulterous, cf. Prov 2:16
Lit gives its eye
Or lookout
From the effect of wounds
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Proverbs Chapter 23 — Additional Translations: