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. Buy Wisdom, Education, Insigh 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!"
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Proverbs 23:19-35
Commentary on Proverbs 23:19-28
(Read Proverbs 23:19-28)
The gracious Saviour who purchased pardon and peace for his people, with all the affection of a tender parent, counsels us to hear and be wise, and is ready to guide our hearts in his way. Here we have an earnest call to young people, to attend to the advice of their godly parents. If the heart be guided, the steps will be guided. Buy the truth, and sell it not; be willing to part with any thing for it. Do not part with it for pleasures, honours, riches, or any thing in this world. The heart is what the great God requires. We must not think to divide the heart between God and the world; he will have all or none. Look to the rule of God's word, the conduct of his providence, and the good examples of his people. Particular cautions are given against sins most destructive to wisdom and grace in the soul. It is really a shame to make a god of the belly. Drunkenness stupifies men, and then all goes to ruin. Licentiousness takes away the heart that should be given to God. Take heed of any approaches toward this sin, it is very hard to retreat from it. It bewitches men to their ruin.
Commentary on Proverbs 23:29-35
(Read Proverbs 23:29-35)
Solomon warns against drunkenness. Those that would be kept from sin, must keep from all the beginnings of it, and fear coming within reach of its allurements. Foresee the punishment, what it will at last end in, if repentance prevent not. It makes men quarrel. Drunkards wilfully make woe and sorrow for themselves. It makes men impure and insolent. The tongue grows unruly; the heart utters things contrary to reason, religion, and common civility. It stupifies and besots men. They are in danger of death, of damnation; as much exposed as if they slept upon the top of a mast, yet feel secure. They fear no peril when the terrors of the Lord are before them; they feel no pain when the judgments of God are actually upon them. So lost is a drunkard to virtue and honour, so wretchedly is his conscience seared, that he is not ashamed to say, I will seek it again. With good reason we were bid to stop before the beginning. Who that has common sense would contract a habit, or sell himself to a sin, which tends to such guilt and misery, and exposes a man every day to the danger of dying insensible, and awaking in hell? Wisdom seems in these chapters to take up the discourse as at the beginning of the book. They must be considered as the words of Christ to the sinner.