Original content

English translation

A sage said to his son: You should not go out from the house in the morning until you have first opened your lips to some food, for satiety is the seed of forbearance and patience, while hunger is the source of dry-brainedness and frivolity.

Do not darken your disposition with fasting, for a good temperament is better than all forbearance and patience. When fasting becomes a cause of harm, breaking the fast is better than keeping it.

When you are hungry, every soup or bread you behold stirs up an appetite for it in your nature, and when you sit among acquaintances your greed fastens itself upon them.

Whatever you find at home, moist or dry, it is better to eat of it until you are sated, so that you crave not the food of others and cut off all greed for the gifts of base people.

When the host sits at the head of the table and sees himself as its center, it is better that you eat a morsel from your own liver than from his bread, and better that you drink a draught of your own blood than from his table.

Whoever says, 'Take of my table and my bread,' withdraw your foot from his table and your hand from his bread. A green herb that you eat from your own garden is sweeter than his roasted lamb.