1: My son, attend unto my wisdom; Incline thine ear to my understanding: 2: That thou mayest preserve discretion, And that thy lips may keep knowledge. 3: For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth is smoother than 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 take hold on Sheol; 6: So that she findeth not the level path of life: Her ways are unstable, [and] she knoweth [it] not. 7: Now therefore, [my] sons, hearken unto me, And depart not from the words of my mouth. 8: Remove thy way far from her, And come not nigh the door of her house; 9: Lest thou give thine honor unto others, And thy years unto the cruel; 10: Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, And thy labors [be] in the house of an alien, 11: And thou mourn at thy latter end, When thy flesh and thy body are consumed, 12: And say, How have I hated instruction, And my heart despised reproof; 13: Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! 14: I was well-nigh in all evil In the midst of the assembly and congregation. 15: Drink waters out of thine own cistern, And running waters out of thine own well. 16: Should thy springs be dispersed abroad, And streams of water in the streets? 17: Let them be for thyself alone, And not for strangers with thee. 18: Let thy fountain be blessed; And rejoice in the wife of thy youth. 19: [As] a loving hind and a pleasant doe, Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; And be thou ravished always with her love. 20: For why shouldest thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, And embrace the bosom of a foreigner? 21: For the ways of man are before the eyes of Jehovah; And he maketh level all his paths. 22: His own iniquities shall take the wicked, And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin. 23: He shall die for lack of instruction; And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
