1-3. When you go out to dinner with an influential person,mind your manners:Don’t gobble your food,don’t talk with your mouth full.And don’t stuff yourself;bridle your appetite.
4-5. Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich;restrain yourself!Riches disappear in the blink of an eye;wealth sprouts wingsand flies off into the wild blue yonder.
6-8. Don’t accept a meal from a tightwad;don’t expect anything special.He’ll be as stingy with you as he is with himself;he’ll say, “Eat! Drink!” but won’t mean a word of it.His miserly serving will turn your stomachwhen you realize the meal’s a sham.
9. Don’t bother talking sense to fools;they’ll only poke fun at your words.
10-11. Don’t stealthily move back the boundary linesor cheat orphans out of their property,For they have a powerful Advocatewho will go to bat for them.
12. Give yourselves to disciplined instruction;open your ears to tested knowledge.
13-14. Don’t be afraid to correct your young ones;a spanking won’t kill them.A good spanking, in fact, might save themfrom something worse than death.
15-16. Dear child, if you become wise,I’ll be one happy parent.My heart will dance and singto the tuneful truth you’ll speak.
17-18. Don’t for a minute envy careless rebels;soak yourself in the Fear-of-God—That’s where your future lies.Then you won’t be left with an armload of nothing.
19-21. Oh listen, dear child—become wise;point your life in the right direction.Don’t drink too much wine and get drunk;don’t eat too much food and get fat.Drunks and gluttons will end up on skid row,in a stupor and dressed in rags.
22-25. Listen with respect to the father who raised you,and when your mother grows old, don’t neglect her.Buy truth—don’t sell it for love or money;buy wisdom, buy education, buy insight.Parents rejoice when their children turn out well;wise children become proud parents.So make your father happy!Make your mother proud!
26. Dear child, I want your full attention;please do what I show you.
27-28. A whore is a bottomless pit;a loose woman can get you in deep trouble fast.She’ll take you for all you’ve got;she’s worse than a pack of thieves.
29-35. Who are the people who are always crying the blues?Who do you know who reeks of self-pity?Who keeps getting beat up for no reason at all?Whose eyes are bleary and bloodshot?It’s those who spend the night with a bottle,for whom drinking is serious business.Don’t judge wine by its label,or its bouquet, or its full-bodied flavor.Judge it rather by the hangover it leaves you with—the splitting headache, the queasy stomach.Do you really prefer seeing double,with your speech all slurred,Reeling and seasick,drunk as a sailor?“They hit me,” you’ll say, “but it didn’t hurt;they beat on me, but I didn’t feel a thing.When I’m sober enough to manage it,bring me another drink!”