1: When you go out to dinner with an influential person, mind your manners:
2: Don't gobble your food, don't talk with your mouth full.
3: And don't stuff yourself; bridle your appetite.
4: Don't wear yourself out trying to get rich; restrain yourself!
5: Riches disappear in the blink of an eye; wealth sprouts wings and flies off into the wild blue yonder.
6: Don't accept a meal from a tightwad; don't expect anything special.
7: 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.
8: His miserly serving will turn your stomach when you realize the meal's a sham.
9: Don't bother talking sense to fools; they'll only poke fun at your words.
10: Don't stealthily move back the boundary lines or cheat orphans out of their property,
11: For they have a powerful Advocate who will go to bat for them.
12: Give yourselves to disciplined instruction; open your ears to tested knowledge.
13: Don't be afraid to correct your young ones; a spanking won't kill them.
14: A good spanking, in fact, might save them from something worse than death.
15: Dear child, if you become wise, I'll be one happy parent.
16: My heart will dance and sing to the tuneful truth you'll speak.
17: Don't for a minute envy careless rebels; soak yourself in the Fear-of-GOD-
18: That's where your future lies. Then you won't be left with an armload of nothing.
19: Oh listen, dear child--become wise; point your life in the right direction.
20: Don't drink too much wine and get drunk; don't eat too much food and get fat.
21: Drunks and gluttons will end up on skid row, in a stupor and dressed in rags.
22: Listen with respect to the father who raised you, and when your mother grows old, don't neglect her.
23: Buy truth--don't sell it for love or money; buy wisdom, buy education, buy insight.
24: Parents rejoice when their children turn out well; wise children become proud parents.
25: So make your father happy! Make your mother proud!
26: Dear child, I want your full attention; please do what I show you.
27: A whore is a bottomless pit; a loose woman can get you in deep trouble fast.
28: She'll take you for all you've got; she's worse than a pack of thieves.
29: 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?
30: It's those who spend the night with a bottle, for whom drinking is serious business.
31: Don't judge wine by its label, or its bouquet, or its full-bodied flavor.
32: Judge it rather by the hangover it leaves you with--the splitting headache, the queasy stomach.
33: Do you really prefer seeing double, with your speech all slurred,
34: Reeling and seasick, drunk as a sailor?
35: "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!"