The Adulteress’ Trap

¹My son, keep my words

And treasure my commandments within you.

²Keep my commandments and live,

And my law 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 intimate friend;

⁵In order to keep you from the strange woman,

From the foreign woman who flatters with her words.

⁶¶For at the window of my house

I looked out through my lattice,

⁷And I saw among the simple,

And discerned among the sons

A young man lacking a heart of wisdom ,

⁸Passing through the street near her corner;

And he strides along the way to her house,

⁹In the twilight, in the evening of that day,

In the middle of the night, and in the thick darkness.

¹⁰And behold, a woman comes to meet him,

Dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart.

¹¹She is boisterous and rebellious,

Her feet do not dwell at home;

¹²Stepping in the streets, stepping in the squares,

And near every corner she lies in wait.

¹³So she seizes him and kisses him

And with a brazen face she says to him:

¹⁴“The sacrifices of peace offerings are with me;

Today I paid my vows.

¹⁵“Therefore I have come out to meet you,

To seek your face earnestly, and I have found you.

¹⁶“I have spread my couch with coverings,

With colored linens of Egypt.

¹⁷“I have sprinkled my bed

With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸“Come, then, let us drink our fill as lovers until morning;

Let us delight ourselves with the pleasures of love.

¹⁹“For my husband is not at home,[#7:19 Lit the man]

He has gone on a journey far away;

²⁰He took a bag of silver in his hand,

On the day of the full moon he will come home.”

²¹With her abundant persuasions she entices him;[#7:21 Lit learning]

With her flattering lips she drives him to herself .

²²He suddenly follows her

As an ox goes to the slaughter,

Or as one in fetters to the discipline of an ignorant fool,

²³Until an arrow pierces through his liver;

As a bird hastens to the snare,

And he does not know that it will cost him his soul.

²⁴¶So now, my sons, listen to me,

And pay attention to the words of my mouth.

²⁵Do not let your heart go astray into her ways,

Do not wander into her pathways.

²⁶For many are the slain whom she has cast down,

And numerous are all those killed by her.

²⁷The ways to Sheol are in her house,

Descending to the chambers of death.