Proverbs 5

¹My son, attend unto my wisdom;

Incline thine ear to my understanding:

²That thou mayest preserve discretion,

And that thy lips may keep knowledge.

³For the lips of a strange woman drop honey,

And her mouth is smoother than oil:

⁴But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

Sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death;

Her steps take hold on Sheol;

⁶So that she findeth not the level path of life:

Her ways are unstable, and she knoweth it not.

⁷Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me,

And depart not from the words of my mouth.

⁸Remove thy way far from her,

And come not nigh the door of her house;

⁹Lest thou give thine honor unto others,

And thy years unto the cruel;

¹⁰Lest strangers be filled with thy strength,

And thy labors be in the house of an alien,

¹¹And thou mourn at thy latter end,

When thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

¹²And say, How have I hated instruction,

And my heart despised reproof;

¹³Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers,

Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

¹⁴I was well-nigh in all evil

In the midst of the assembly and congregation.

¹⁵Drink waters out of thine own cistern,

And running waters out of thine own well.

¹⁶Should thy springs be dispersed abroad,

And streams of water in the streets?

¹⁷Let them be for thyself alone,

And not for strangers with thee.

¹⁸Let thy fountain be blessed;

And rejoice in the wife of thy youth.

¹⁹As a loving hind and a pleasant doe,

Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times;

And be thou ravished always with her love.

²⁰For why shouldest thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman,

And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?

²¹For the ways of man are before the eyes of Jehovah;

And he maketh level all his paths.

²²His own iniquities shall take the wicked,

And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.

²³He shall die for lack of instruction;

And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.