The Path

Proverbs 23

World English Bible · Public Domain

¹ When you sit to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before you;

² put a knife to your throat, if you are a man given to appetite.

³ Don’t be desirous of his dainties, since they are deceitful food.

⁴ Don’t weary yourself to be rich. In your wisdom, show restraint.

⁵ Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.

⁶ Don’t eat the food of him who has a stingy eye, and don’t crave his delicacies:

⁷ for as he thinks about the cost, so he is. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

⁸ The morsel which you have eaten you shall vomit up, and lose your good words.

⁹ Don’t speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.

¹⁰ Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless:

¹¹ for their Defender is strong. He will plead their case against you.

¹² Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to the words of knowledge.

¹³ Don’t withhold correction from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die.

¹⁴ Punish him with the rod, and save his soul from Sheol.

¹⁵ My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad, even mine:

¹⁶ yes, my heart will rejoice, when your lips speak what is right.

¹⁷ Don’t let your heart envy sinners; but rather fear Yahweh all day long.

¹⁸ Indeed surely there is a future hope, and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁹ Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path!

²⁰ Don’t be among ones drinking too much wine, or those who gorge themselves on meat:

²¹ for the drunkard and the glutton shall become poor; and drowsiness clothes them in rags.

²² Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.

²³ Buy the truth, and don’t sell it. Get wisdom, discipline, and understanding.

²⁴ The father of the righteous has great joy. Whoever fathers a wise child delights in him.

²⁵ Let your father and your mother be glad! Let her who bore you rejoice!

²⁶ My son, give me your heart; and let your eyes keep in my ways.

²⁷ For a prostitute is a deep pit; and a wayward wife is a narrow well.

²⁸ Yes, she lies in wait like a robber, and increases the unfaithful among men.

²⁹ Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?

³⁰ Those who stay long at the wine; those who go to seek out mixed wine.

³¹ Don’t look at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly.

³² In the end, it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper.

³³ Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will imagine confusing things.

³⁴ 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:

³⁵ “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 can find another.”

James 2

World English Bible · Public Domain

¹ My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partiality.

² For if a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, comes into your synagogue, and a poor man in filthy clothing also comes in;

³ and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing, and say, “Sit here in a good place”; and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool”;

⁴ haven’t you shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him?

⁶ But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?

⁷ Don’t they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called?

⁸ However, if you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.

⁹ But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors.

¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

¹¹ For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

¹² So speak, and so do, as men who are to be judged by a law of freedom.

¹³ For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith, but has no works? Can faith save him?

¹⁵ And if a brother or sister is naked and in lack of daily food,

¹⁶ and one of you tells them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”; and yet you didn’t give them the things the body needs, what good is it?

¹⁷ Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself.

¹⁸ Yes, a man will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith.

¹⁹ You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder.

²⁰ But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead?

²¹ Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?

²² You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected;

²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God.

²⁴ You see then that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith.

²⁵ In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way?

²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.