Proverbs 23 · The Lantern

True Riches

Saying 7

When you sit to eat with a ruler, understand well what is before you,

And they are commanded to be "set forth upon the clean table". Who among us is there who has so "clean a table" that upon it "loaves" may be offered to the Lord? "If you sit down to dine at the table of a powerful man", says Solomon, "understand intelligently what is set before you".

Divine Scripture commands that, when we have been invited to a rich man's banquet, we should with understanding put forth our hand to the dishes. And so for us too the banquet of Scriptures has been set out as a rich man's feast. We have come into a meadow; it has very many flowers: here the rose is red, there the lilies gleam white, there are flowers of every kind.

When you sit down to eat with a ruler, etc. All things are said through allegory: When you sit down to read with a teacher, to be refreshed by the bread of the word, diligently understand what is written, and maintain the discernment of sacred reading in your speech, if, however, you are such a one and so learned that you have in your power your soul, and not as an unlearned on…

and put a knife to your throat if you are a master of appetite.

Do not crave his delicacies, for it is bread of lies.

Saying 8

Do not toil to become rich; cease from your own understanding.

Will your eyes fly to it, and it is gone? For it surely makes wings for itself; like an eagle it flies to the heavens.

Saying 9

Do not eat the bread of one evil of eye, and do not crave his delicacies,

for as he calculates in his soul, so is he. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

Your morsel that you have eaten you will vomit up, and you will waste your pleasant words.

Saying 10

Do not speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the good sense of your words.

Saying 11

Do not move an ancient boundary, and do not enter the fields of orphans,

for their Redeemer is strong; he will contend their contention with you.

Saying 12

Bring your heart to discipline, and your ear to sayings of knowledge.

Saying 13

Do not withhold discipline from a young man; if you strike him with the rod he will not die.

As small children who are negligent in learning become more attentive and obedient after being punished by their teacher or tutor, and as they do not listen before the lash, but, after feeling the pain of a beating, hear and respond as though their ears were just recently opened, improving also in memory, so likewise with those who neglect divine doctrine and spurn the commandm…

If the evil will is always to be left to its own freedom, why are careless shepherds rebuked, and why is it said to them, "The wandering sheep you have not called back, that which was lost you have not sought"?

When someone presumes to commit a sin against God, he ought to suffer a monastic penance. This should be done in a kind and devout spirit, so that through rebuke he may be corrected in this life in such a way that he may not perish in the future. For every sin which is not corrected in this world will be punished in the future life.

You will strike him with the rod and deliver his soul from Sheol.

Saying 14

My son, if your heart is wise, my heart will be glad — mine also.

And my kidneys will exult when your lips speak uprightness.

Saying 15

Let not your heart envy sinners, but be in the fear of the LORD all the day.

For surely there is an end, and your hope will not be cut off.

Saying 16

Hear, you, my son, and be wise, and lead your heart straight in the way.

Do not be among drinkers of wine, among gluttons of flesh for themselves,

for a drinker and a glutton will be dispossessed, and slumber will clothe one in rags.

Saying 17

Listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

Buy truth and do not sell it — wisdom and discipline and understanding.

The father of a righteous man will surely rejoice, and one who begets a wise son will be glad in him.

Let your father and your mother be glad, and let her who bore you rejoice.

Saying 18

Give me your heart, my son, and let your eyes keep my ways.

For a prostitute is a deep pit, and a foreign woman a narrow well.

She also lies in wait like a robber, and she increases the treacherous among men.

Saying 19

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has discords? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?

By the mention of redness of eyes—a sign of death—it is made clear that the wine-bibber is already dead to the Word and to reason. It declares his death to the Lord. If one forgets the motives that prompt him to seek the true life, he is dragged down to corruption.

Since you are the presbyters and deacons of Christ, you ought always to be sober, both among yourselves and among others, so that you may be able to warn the unruly. Now the Scripture says, "The men in power are passionate.

To whom wounds without cause? etc. Wounds without cause, because many, filled beyond measure with wine, have received wounds in their limbs out of fear, which they have endured for no cause; weakening of the eyes, because the immoderate drink of wine produces darkness to many physical sights and blindness of inner senses.

Those who linger over wine, those who come to search out mixed drink.

Do not look at wine when it is red, when it gives its eye in the cup, when it goes down smoothly.

Its end — it bites like a snake and stings like a viper.

Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will speak perversities.

And you will be like one lying down in the heart of the sea, and like one lying at the top of a mast.

“They struck me — I was not sick! They beat me — I did not know! When will I awake? I will seek it again.”