Proverbs 23

DOUAI-RHEIMS	NEW JERUSALEM
1 When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face.	1 If you take your seat at a great man's table, take careful note of what you have before you;
2 And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power.	2 if you have a big appetite put a knife to your throat.
3 Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit.	3 Do not hanker for his delicacies, for they are deceptive food.
4 Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.	4 Do not wear yourself out in quest of wealth, stop applying your mind to this.
5 Lift not up thy eyes to riches which thou canst not have: because they shall make themselves wings like those of an eagle, and shall fly towards heaven.	5 Fix 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.
6 Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats:	6 Do not eat the food of anyone whose eye is jealous, do not hanker for his delicacies.
7 Because like a soothsayer, and diviner, he thinketh that which he knoweth not. Eat and drink, will he say to thee: and his mind is not with thee.	7 For what he is real y thinking about is himself: 'Eat and drink,' he tells you, but his heart is not with you.
8 The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words.	8 You wil spit out whatever you have eaten and find your compliments wasted.
9 Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech.	9 Do not waste words on a fool, who wil not appreciate the shrewdness of your remarks.
10 Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless:	10 Do not displace the ancient boundary-stone, or encroach on orphans' lands,
11 For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee.	11 for they have a powerful avenger, and he will take up their cause against you.
12 Let thy heart apply itself to instruction: and thy ears to words of knowledge.	12 Apply your heart to discipline, and your ears to instructive sayings.
13 Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.	13 Do not be chary of correcting a child, a stroke of the cane is not likely to be fatal.
14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.	14 Give him a stroke of the cane, you wil save his soul from Sheol.
15 My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:	15 My child, if your heart is wise, then my own heart is glad,
16 And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right.	16 and my inmost self rejoices when from your lips come honest words.
17 Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long:	17 Do not let your heart be envious of sinners but remain steady every day in the fear of Yahweh;
18 Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away.	18 for there is a future, and your hope wil not come to nothing.
19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.	19 Listen, my child, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way.
20 Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat:	20 Do not be one of those forever tippling wine nor one of those who gorge themselves with meat;
21 Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together shall be consumed; and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags.	21 for the drunkard and glutton impoverish themselves, and sleepiness is clothed in rags.
22 Hearken to thy father, that beget thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old.	22 Listen to your father from whom you are sprung, do not despise your mother in her old age.
23 Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.	23 Purchase truth -- never sel it-wisdom, discipline, and discernment.
24 The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him.	24 The father of the upright wil rejoice indeed, he who fathers a wise child wil have joy of it.
25 Let thy father, and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee.	25 Your father and mother will be happy, and she who bore you joyful.
26 My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.	26 My child, pay attention to me, let your eyes take pleasure in my way:
27 For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.	27 a prostitute is a deep pit, a narrow wel , the woman who belongs to another.
28 She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill.	28 Yes, like a brigand, she lies in wait, increasing the number of law-breakers.
29 Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?	29 For whom is pity, for whom contempt, for whom is strife, for whom complaint, for whom blows struckat random, for whom the clouded eye?
30 Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups.	30 For those who linger over wine too long, ever on the look-out for the blended liquors.
31 Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,	31 Do not gaze at wine, how red it is, how it sparkles in the cup! How smoothly it slips down the throat!
32 But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.	32 In the end its bite is like a serpent's, its sting as sharp as an adder's.
33 Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.	33 Your eyes wil see peculiar things, you will talk nonsense from your heart.
34 And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep, when the stern is lost.	34 You will be like someone sleeping in mid-ocean, like one asleep at the mast-head.
35 And thou shalt say: They have beaten me, but I was not sensible of pain: they drew me, and I felt not: when shall I awake, and find wine again?	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!'