1: My son! to my wisdom give attention, To mine understanding incline thine ear, 2: To observe thoughtfulness, And knowledge do thy lips keep. 3: For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And smoother than oil [is] her mouth, 4: And her latter end [is] bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a sword [with] mouths. 5: Her feet are going down to death, Sheol do her steps take hold of. 6: The path of life -- lest thou ponder, Moved have her paths -- thou knowest not. 7: And now, ye sons, hearken to me, And turn not from sayings of my mouth. 8: Keep far from off her thy way, And come not near unto the opening of her house, 9: Lest thou give to others thy honour, And thy years to the fierce, 10: Lest strangers be filled [with] thy power, And thy labours in the house of a stranger, 11: And thou hast howled in thy latter end, In the consumption of thy flesh and thy food, 12: And hast said, 'How have I hated instruction, And reproof hath my heart despised, 13: And I have not hearkened to the voice of my directors, And to my teachers have not inclined mine ear. 14: As a little thing I have been all evil, In the midst of an assembly and a company. 15: Drink waters out of thine own cistern, Even flowing ones out of thine own well. 16: Let thy fountains be scattered abroad, In broad places rivulets of waters. 17: Let them be to thee for thyself, And not to strangers with thee. 18: Let thy fountain be blessed, And rejoice because of the wife of thy youth, 19: A hind of loves, and a roe of grace! Let her loves satisfy thee at all times, In her love magnify thyself continually. 20: And why dost thou magnify thyself, My son, with a stranger? And embrace the bosom of a strange woman? 21: For over-against the eyes of Jehovah are the ways of each, And all his paths He is pondering. 22: His own iniquities do capture the wicked, And with the ropes of his sin he is holden. 23: He dieth without instruction, And in the abundance of his folly magnifieth himself!
