1: My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. 2: Keep my commandments, and live; and my teaching, as the apple of thine eye. 3: Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the tablet of thy heart. 4: Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call intelligence [thy] kinswoman: 5: that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger who flattereth with her words. 6: For at the window of my house, I looked forth through my lattice, 7: and I beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the sons, a young man void of understanding, 8: passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, 9: in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness. 10: And behold, there met him a woman in the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart. 11: She is clamorous and unmanageable; her feet abide not in her house: 12: now without, now in the broadways, -- and she lieth in wait at every corner. 13: And she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, 14: I have peace-offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows: 15: therefore came I forth to meet thee, to seek earnestly thy face, and I have found thee. 16: I have decked my bed with tapestry coverlets of variegated linen from Egypt; 17: I have perfumed my couch with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. 18: Come, let us revel in love until the morning, let us delight ourselves with loves. 19: For the husband is not at home, he is gone a long journey; 20: he hath taken the money-bag with him, he will come home on the day of the full moon. 21: With her much enticement she beguiled him; with the smoothness of her lips she constrained him. 22: He went after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, and as stocks [serve] for the correction of the fool; 23: till an arrow strike through his liver: as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for its life. 24: And now, ye sons, hearken unto me, and attend to the words of my mouth. 25: Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths: 26: for she hath cast down many wounded, and all slain by her were strong. 27: Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.
