[1] My son, attend unto my wisdom and bow thine ear to my understanding, [2] that thou mayest have regard for discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. [3] For the lips of a strange woman drip as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil; [4] but her end is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. [5] Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. [6] Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are wandering, that thou canst not know them. [7] Hear me now therefore, O ye children, 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 wealth and thy labors be in the house of a stranger, [11] and thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, [12] and thou sayest, "How have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof; [13] and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! [14] I was almost in total evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." [15] Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. [16] Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. [17] Let them be only thine own, and not for strangers with thee. [18] Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. [19] Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. [20] And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? [21] For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and He pondereth all his doings. [22] His own iniquities shall entrap the wicked himself, and he shall be held by the cords of his sins. [23] He shall die without instruction, and in the greatness of his folly shall he go astray.
