The Wiles of an Adulteress

¹My son, keep my words,[#Pr 1:8]

and treasure my commandments within you.

²Keep my commandments and live,

and my teaching as the apple of your eye.

³Bind them on your fingers;

write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”

and call understanding your kin,

⁵that they may keep you from an adulteress,

from the foreigner who flatters with her words.

⁶For at the window of my house

I looked out through my lattice,

⁷and I saw among the simple ones,[#Pr 1:22]

I discerned among the youths,

a young man lacking understanding,

⁸passing through the street near her corner,

taking the way to her house

⁹in the twilight, in the evening,

in the black and dark night.

¹⁰And behold, a woman met him,

with the attire of a prostitute and with crafty intent.

¹¹She was loud and stubborn;[#Pr 9:13]

her feet did not stay at home.

¹²Now she is in the streets, now in the markets,

lying in wait at every corner.

¹³She caught him and kissed him,[#Ge 39:12]

and with an impudent face she said to him:

¹⁴“I have peace offerings with me;[#Lev 7:11]

this day I have paid my vows.

¹⁵Therefore I came out to meet you,

to diligently seek you, and I have found you.

¹⁶I have decked my couch with tapestry,

colored linens from Egypt.

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed

with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning;

let us delight ourselves with love.

¹⁹For my husband is not at home;

he has gone on a long journey.

²⁰He has taken a bag of money with him

and will not come home until full moon.”

²¹With her enticing speech she led him astray;

with her flattering lips she seduced him.

²²Immediately he followed her,

as an ox goes to the slaughter,

or as a fool to the correction of the stocks,

²³until an arrow pierces his liver;

as a bird darting into the snare,

he did not know that it would cost him his life.

²⁴Now therefore, my sons, listen to me,

And be attentive to the words of my mouth.

²⁵Let not let your heart turn aside to her ways;

do not stray into her paths,

²⁶for many are the wounded she has laid low,

and numerous are all those slain by her.

²⁷Her house is the way to Sheol,

descending to the chambers of death.