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5
1 My child, be attentive to my wisdom,
pay close attention to my understanding,
2 in order to safeguard discretion,
and that your lips may guard knowledge.
3 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey,
and her seductive words are smoother than olive oil,
4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead straight to the grave.
6 Lest she should make level the path leading to life,
her paths are unstable but she does not know it.
7 So now, children, listen to me;
do not turn aside from the words I speak.
8 Keep yourself far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house,
9 lest you give your vigor to others
and your years to a cruel person,
10 lest strangers devour your strength,
and your labor benefit another man’s house.
11 And at the end of your life you will groan
when your flesh and your body are wasted away.
12 And you will say, “How I hated discipline!
My heart spurned reproof!
13 For I did not obey my teachers
and I did not heed my instructors.
14 I almost came to complete ruin
in the midst of the whole congregation!”
15 Drink water from your own cistern
and running water from your own well.
16 Should your springs be dispersed outside,
your streams of water in the wide plazas?
17 Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
18 May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in your young wife –
19 a loving doe, a graceful deer;
may her breasts satisfy you at all times,
may you be captivated by her love always.
20 But why should you be captivated, my son, by an adulteress,
and embrace the bosom of a different woman?
21 For the ways of a person are in front of the Lord’s eyes,
and the Lord weighs all that person’s paths.
22 The wicked will be captured by his own iniquities,
and he will be held by the cords of his own sin.
23 He will die because there was no discipline;
because of the greatness of his folly he will reel.

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