When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider carefully what is set before you,
Parallel translations
- WEB When you sit to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before you;
- KJV When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee:
- NKJV When you sit down to eat with a ruler, Consider carefully what is before you;
- NASB When you sit down to dine with a ruler, Consider carefully what is before you,
- NLT While dining with a ruler, pay attention to what is put before you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
When dining with a powerful ruler, pay careful attention to your situation.
Overview
This begins counsel about self-control and discernment in the presence of the powerful. A meal with a ruler is not simple hospitality but a setting requiring caution and watchfulness. Wisdom recognizes that favor and danger can sit at the same table, calling for vigilance rather than naive indulgence.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 2
- Jude 1:12These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted.
- Gen 43:32–34They separately served Joseph, his brothers, and the Egyptians. They ate separately because the Egyptians would not eat with the Hebrews, since that was detestable to them.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 23:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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