---
title: "Proverbs 23 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/proverbs/23/
description: "Proverbs 23, all 35 verses, in the Catholic Public Domain Version with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Proverbs 23

Proverbs 23 is chapter 23 of 31 in the Book of Proverbs. Here are all 35 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

## Proverbs 23 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. When you sit down to eat with a leader, pay close attention to what has been set before your face,
2. and put a knife to your throat, if, in such a way, you could hold your soul in your own power.
3. Do not desire his foods, in which is the bread of deceit.
4. Do not be willing to labor so that you may be enriched. But set limits by your prudence.
5. Do not raise your eyes toward wealth that you are not able to have. For they will make themselves wings, like those of an eagle, and they will fly in the sky.
6. Do not eat with an envious man, and do not desire his foods.
7. For, like a seer and an interpreter of dreams, he presumes what he does not know. “Eat and drink,” he will say to you; and his mind is not with you.
8. The foods that you had eaten, you will vomit up. And you will lose the beauty in your words.
9. Do not speak into the ears of the unwise. They will despise the doctrine of your eloquence.
10. Do not touch the boundaries of little ones, and do not enter into the field of the fatherless.
11. For their close relative is strong, and he will judge their case against you.
12. Let your heart enter into doctrine, and let your ears enter into words of knowledge.
13. Do not be willing to take away discipline from a child. For if you strike him with the rod, he will not die.
14. You will strike him with the rod, and so shall you deliver his soul from Hell.
15. My son, if your soul will become wise, my heart will be glad with you.
16. And my temperament will exult, when your lips will have spoken what is upright.
17. Let not your heart compete with sinners. But be in the fear of the Lord all day long.
18. For you will have hope in the end, and your expectation will not be taken away.
19. Listen, my son, and be wise, and direct your soul along the way.
20. Do not be willing to be in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in the carousings of those who gather to feed on flesh.
21. For those who waste time drinking, and who surrender themselves to symbols, will be consumed. And those who sleep will be clothed in rags.
22. Listen to your father, who conceived you. And do not despise your mother, when she is old.
23. Purchase truth, and do not sell wisdom, or doctrine, or understanding.
24. The father of the just exults in gladness; he who has conceived the wise will rejoice in him.
25. Let your father and your mother be joyful, and may she who conceived you exult.
26. My son, offer me your heart, and let your eyes keep to my ways.
27. For a loose woman is a deep pit, and a foreign woman is a constricted well.
28. She lies in wait along the way like a robber. And the incautious one whom she sees, she will put to death.
29. Who has woe? Whose father has woe? Who has quarrels? Who falls into pits? Who has wounds without cause? Who has watery eyes?
30. Is it not those who linger over wine, and who strive to be drinking from their cups?
31. Do not gaze into the wine when it turns gold, when its color shines in the glass. It enters pleasantly,
32. but in the end, it will bite like a snake, and it will spread poison like a king of snakes.
33. Your eyes will see women who are outsiders, and your heart will utter perversities.
34. And you will be like someone sleeping in the middle of the sea, and like a pilot, fast asleep, who has lost his hold on the helm.
35. And you will say: “They have beaten me, but I did not feel pain. They have dragged me, and I did not realize it. When will I awaken and find more wine?”

## Proverbs 23 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Quando sederis ut comedas cum principe, diligenter attende quæ apposita sunt ante faciem tuam.
2. Et statue cultrum in gutture tuo: si tamen habes in potestate animam tuam.
3. Ne desideres de cibis ejus, in quo est panis mendacii.
4. Noli laborare ut diteris, sed prudentiæ tuæ pone modum.
5. Ne erigas oculos tuos ad opes quas non potes habere, quia facient sibi pennas quasi aquilæ, et volabunt in cælum.
6. Ne comedas cum homine invido, et ne desideres cibos ejus:
7. quoniam in similitudinem arioli et conjectoris æstimat quod ignorat. Comede et bibe, dicet tibi; et mens ejus non est tecum.
8. Cibos quos comederas evomes, et perdes pulchros sermones tuos.
9. In auribus insipientium ne loquaris, qui despicient doctrinam eloquii tui.
10. Ne attingas parvulorum terminos, et agrum pupillorum ne introëas:
11. propinquus enim illorum fortis est, et ipse judicabit contra te causam illorum.
12. Ingrediatur ad doctrinam cor tuum, et aures tuæ ad verba scientiæ.
13. Noli subtrahere a puero disciplinam: si enim percusseris eum virga, non morietur.
14. Tu virga percuties eum, et animam ejus de inferno liberabis.
15. Fili mi, si sapiens fuerit animus tuus, gaudebit tecum cor meum:
16. et exsultabunt renes mei, cum locuta fuerint rectum labia tua.
17. Non æmuletur cor tuum peccatores, sed in timore Domini esto tota die:
18. quia habebis spem in novissimo, et præstolatio tua non auferetur.
19. Audi, fili mi, et esto sapiens, et dirige in via animum tuum.
20. Noli esse in conviviis potatorum, nec in comessationibus eorum qui carnes ad vescendum conferunt:
21. quia vacantes potibus et dantes symbola consumentur, et vestietur pannis dormitatio.
22. Audi patrem tuum, qui genuit te, et ne contemnas cum senuerit mater tua.
23. Veritatem eme, et noli vendere sapientiam, et doctrinam, et intelligentiam.
24. Exsultat gaudio pater justi; qui sapientem genuit, lætabitur in eo.
25. Gaudeat pater tuus et mater tua, et exsultet quæ genuit te.
26. Præbe, fili mi, cor tuum mihi, et oculi tui vias meas custodiant.
27. Fovea enim profunda est meretrix, et puteus angustus aliena.
28. Insidiatur in via quasi latro, et quos incautos viderit, interficiet.
29. Cui væ? cujus patri væ? cui rixæ? cui foveæ? cui sine causa vulnera? cui suffusio oculorum?
30. nonne his qui commorantur in vino, et student calicibus epotandis?
31. Ne intuearis vinum quando flavescit, cum splenduerit in vitro color ejus: ingreditur blande,
32. sed in novissimo mordebit ut coluber, et sicut regulus venena diffundet.
33. Oculi tui videbunt extraneas, et cor tuum loquetur perversa.
34. Et eris sicut dormiens in medio mari, et quasi sopitus gubernator, amisso clavo.
35. Et dices: Verberaverunt me, sed non dolui; traxerunt me, et ego non sensi. Quando evigilabo, et rursus vina reperiam?

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).