World English Bible
- When you sit to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before you;
- put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to appetite.
- Don’t be desirous of his dainties, since they are deceitful food.
- Don’t weary yourself to be rich. In your wisdom, show restraint.
- Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.
- Don’t eat the food of him who has a stingy eye, and don’t crave his delicacies,
- for as he thinks about the cost, so he is. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
- You will vomit up the morsel which you have eaten and waste your pleasant words.
- Don’t speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.
- Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless,
- for their Defender is strong. He will plead their case against you.
- Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to the words of knowledge.
- Don’t withhold correction from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die.
- Punish him with the rod, and save his soul from Sheol.
- My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad, even mine.
- Yes, my heart will rejoice when your lips speak what is right.
- Don’t let your heart envy sinners, but rather fear the LORD all day long.
- Indeed surely there is a future hope, and your hope will not be cut off.
- Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path!
- Don’t be among ones drinking too much wine, or those who gorge themselves on meat;
- for the drunkard and the glutton shall become poor; and drowsiness clothes them in rags.
- Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.
- Buy the truth, and don’t sell it. Get wisdom, discipline, and understanding.
- The father of the righteous has great joy. Whoever fathers a wise child delights in him.
- Let your father and your mother be glad! Let her who bore you rejoice!
- My son, give me your heart; and let your eyes keep in my ways.
- For a prostitute is a deep pit; and a wayward wife is a narrow well.
- Yes, she lies in wait like a robber, and increases the unfaithful among men.
- Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
- Those who stay long at the wine; those who go to seek out mixed wine.
- Don’t look at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly.
- In the end, it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper.
- Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will imagine confusing things.
- Yes, you will be as he who lies down in the middle of the sea, or as he who lies on top of the rigging:
- “They hit me, and I was not hurt! They beat me, and I don’t feel it! When will I wake up? I can do it again. I will look for more.”
Proverbs 23 is not merely a list of warnings about money, food, sex, and wine. It is a study of captured desire—of how the things we watch eventually begin to watch over us.
The chapter repeatedly joins the eyes and the heart. We set our eyes on wealth; the miser has a “stingy eye”; the son is told to give his heart and direct his eyes toward wisdom; finally, wine sparkles before the eyes and disorders the mind. In verse 31, the Hebrew behind “sparkles” is unusually vivid: the wine “gives its eye in the cup.” The drink seems to look back at the drinker. What began as an object of attention becomes a power of command.
This is temptation’s ancient pattern. Eve saw that the fruit was desirable before she took it. Desire enters through sustained attention, then quietly becomes obedience.
The opening banquet likely reflects the dangerous world of royal patronage. In the ancient Near East, eating a ruler’s food could create obligation. The meal might look generous while hiding a hook. Similar advice appears in the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope, which has striking parallels with this section of Proverbs.
The warning is not that fine food is sinful. It is that some gifts are disguised chains. The ruler’s delicacies and the miser’s invitation both promise fellowship, yet the host’s heart is absent. Appetite can make us surrender discernment for access, status, or belonging.
How different is Christ’s table. Earthly rulers may feed us in order to possess us; Christ gives himself in order to free us. His bread is not “deceitful food.” At his table, the Host’s heart is truly with his guests.
Riches sprout wings and vanish, yet verse 23 commands us to “buy the truth” and never sell it. The irony is deliberate: what can be bought with money will eventually leave us, but truth may cost us everything and still remain ours.
Even inherited land was sacred. Boundary stones marked a family’s livelihood across generations. Moving one against the fatherless was more than theft; it erased the weak from the map. But their “Defender” is the Hebrew go’el—the kinsman-redeemer who acts as family when family cannot. God himself stands at the stolen boundary. This reaches its fullness in Christ, our Redeemer, who brings outsiders into God’s household.
The chapter closes with addiction’s terrible liturgy: pain, confusion, numbness—and then, “I will look for more.” Sin does not merely offer pleasure; it trains us to seek again what wounded us. Augustine understood this as disordered love: the heart asks created things to bear the weight only God can carry.
Suggested readings: Deuteronomy 19:14; Isaiah
55:1–2; Luke 14:15–24; Ephesians 5:15–20
Suggested hymn: “Be Thou My Vision”
Lord Jesus, guard my eyes, govern my appetites, and receive my heart. Expose every gift that hides a chain, defend those whose boundaries are threatened, and teach me to desire the truth that cannot fly away. Amen.