5
1 My son, attend unto my wisdom; to my understanding incline thou thy ear: 2 That thou mayest observe discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. 3 For as of fine honey drop the lips of an adulterous woman, and smoother than oil is her palate; 4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, it is sharp as a two-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death, her steps take firm hold on the nether world: 6 So that she cannot balance the path of life; her tracks are unsteady, and she knoweth it not. 7 And now, O ye children, hearken unto me, and depart not from the sayings of my mouth. 8 Remove far from her thy way, and come not nigh to the door of her house; 9 That thou mayest not give up unto others thy vigor, and thy years unto the cruel; 10 That strangers may not satisfy themselves with thy strength, and with thy exertions, in the house of an alien: 11 While thou moanest at thy end, when thy flesh and thy body are coming to their end, 12 And thou sayest, How have I hated correction, and how hath my heart rejected reproof; 13 While I hearkened not to the voice of my instructors, and to my teachers I inclined not my ear; 14 But little more was wanting, and I had been in all [kinds of] unhappiness in the midst of the congregation and assembly. 15 Drink water out of thy own cistern, and running waters out of thy own well. 16 So will thy springs overflow abroad; and in the open streets will be thy rivulets of water; 17 They will be thy own only, and not those of strangers with thee. 18 Thy fountain will be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth,— 19 The lovely gazelle and the graceful chamois: let her bosom satisfy thee abundantly at all times; with her love be thou ravished continually. 20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with an adulteress, and embrace the bosom of an alien woman? 21 For before the eyes of the Lord are the ways of man, and all his tracks doth he weigh in the balance. 22 His own iniquities will truly catch the wicked, and with the cords of his sin will he be held firmly. 23 He will indeed die for want of correction; and through the abundance of his folly will he sink into error.