1 My son, attend unto my wisdom,
and
bow thine
ear to my understanding:
2 That thou mayest regard
discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
3 For the lips of a strange woman
drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
4 But her end is
bitter as
wormwood, sharp as a
two-edged
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 moveable, 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 honour unto
others, and thy years unto the cruel:
10 Lest strangers be filled with
thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a
stranger;
11 And thou
mourn at the last, when
thy
flesh and thy body are
consumed,
12 And say, 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 all 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 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 goings.
22 His own iniquities shall take
the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.