Don't Wear Yourself Out
You will vomit up what little you have eaten and waste your pleasant words. Proverbs 23:8 · Berean Standard Bible
You'll end up sick from the whole experience—both physically and relationally—because the dishonesty of it poisons everything.
The vomiting is both literal (the food might actually make you ill because you ate it uncomfortably) and metaphorical (you'll regret the whole encounter). Even your kind words are wasted because they're not really received.
A father or wise teacher speaking to a young person
This shows how dishonesty and unkindness have real consequences. You can't have authentic fellowship with someone who's pretending, and pretended hospitality always leaves you worse off, not better.
Such a false meal situation will result in physical and relational damage—you will regurgitate what little nourishment you received, and your attempts at gracious conversation will prove wasted.
The image of vomiting carries both literal and figurative force; in ancient thought, the body itself rejects what the spirit discerns as corrupted. The phrase 'waste your pleasant words' (שׁמרת נעימיך, shemarti naimotecha) suggests that your efforts at polite discourse—the social lubricant essential to maintaining civility—become nullified by the fundamental dishonesty pervading the encounter.
The sage, concluding the meal-sequence with an image of bodily and social dysfunction that dramatizes the consequences of ignoring previous warnings.
The physical rejection of corrupted food operates as a metaphor for the wisdom tradition's conviction that moral integrity cannot be compartmentalized—that exposure to dishonesty contaminates the entire person, a theme that resonates through prophetic literature's imagery of consuming judgment.
6Do not eat the bread of a stingy man, and do not crave his delicacies;
7for he is keeping track, inwardly counting the cost. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
8You will vomit up what little you have eaten and waste your pleasant words.
9Do not speak to a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.
10Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless,
Read all of Proverbs 23 — Do not wear yourself out to get rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint. Riches sprout wings and fly away like an eagle.
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