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Venerdi, 29 marzo 2024 - Santi Simplicio e Costantino ( Letture di oggi)

Proverbs 23


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1If you take your seat at a great man's table, take careful note of what you have before you;2if you have a big appetite put a knife to your throat.3Do not hanker for his delicacies, for they are deceptive food.4Do not wear yourself out in quest of wealth, stop applying your mind to this.5Fix your gaze on it, and it is there no longer, for it is able to sprout wings like an eagle that flies off tothe sky.6Do not eat the food of anyone whose eye is jealous, do not hanker for his delicacies.7For what he is real y thinking about is himself: 'Eat and drink,' he tells you, but his heart is not with you.8You wil spit out whatever you have eaten and find your compliments wasted.9Do not waste words on a fool, who wil not appreciate the shrewdness of your remarks.10Do not displace the ancient boundary-stone, or encroach on orphans' lands,11for they have a powerful avenger, and he will take up their cause against you.12Apply your heart to discipline, and your ears to instructive sayings.13Do not be chary of correcting a child, a stroke of the cane is not likely to be fatal.14Give him a stroke of the cane, you wil save his soul from Sheol.15My child, if your heart is wise, then my own heart is glad,16and my inmost self rejoices when from your lips come honest words.17Do not let your heart be envious of sinners but remain steady every day in the fear of Yahweh;18for there is a future, and your hope wil not come to nothing.19Listen, my child, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way.20Do not be one of those forever tippling wine nor one of those who gorge themselves with meat;21for the drunkard and glutton impoverish themselves, and sleepiness is clothed in rags.22Listen to your father from whom you are sprung, do not despise your mother in her old age.23Purchase truth -- never sel it-wisdom, discipline, and discernment.24The father of the upright wil rejoice indeed, he who fathers a wise child wil have joy of it.25Your father and mother will be happy, and she who bore you joyful.26My child, pay attention to me, let your eyes take pleasure in my way:27a prostitute is a deep pit, a narrow wel , the woman who belongs to another.28Yes, like a brigand, she lies in wait, increasing the number of law-breakers.29For whom is pity, for whom contempt, for whom is strife, for whom complaint, for whom blows struckat random, for whom the clouded eye?30For those who linger over wine too long, ever on the look-out for the blended liquors.31Do not gaze at wine, how red it is, how it sparkles in the cup! How smoothly it slips down the throat!32In the end its bite is like a serpent's, its sting as sharp as an adder's.33Your eyes wil see peculiar things, you will talk nonsense from your heart.34You will be like someone sleeping in mid-ocean, like one asleep at the mast-head.35'Struck me, have they? But I'm not hurt. Beaten me? I don't feel anything. When shal I wake up? . . I'lask for more of it!'