Proverbs 7

Warning Against the Strange Woman

¹My child, guard my sayings;

²Keep my commands and live,

³Bind them on your fingers;

⁴Say to wisdom, “you are my sister,”[#Hebrew “the wisdom”]

⁵In order to guard yourself from an adulteress,[#Literally “a strange woman”]

⁶For at the window of my house,

⁷And I saw among the simple,

⁸passing on the street at her corner,[#Literally “at the place of”]

⁹at twilight, at the day’s evening,

¹⁰Then behold! A woman comes to meet him

¹¹She is loud and stubborn;

¹²Now in the street, now in the square,

¹³She took hold of him and kissed him.[#Or “strengthened”]

¹⁴“Sacrifices of peace offerings are upon me;

¹⁵So I have come out to meet you,[#Hebrew “thus”]

¹⁶With coverings I have adorned my couch,

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love making,

¹⁹For there is no man in his home;[#Or “husband”]

²⁰The bag of money he took in his hand,

²¹She persuades him with the greatness of her teachings;

²²He goes after her suddenly;

²³until an arrow pierces his entrails,[#Literally “heaviness,” often referring to the liver]

Reiteration of the Warning Against a Strange Woman

²⁴And now, my children, listen to me,

²⁵May your heart not turn aside to her ways;

²⁶For many slain she has laid low,

²⁷The ways of Sheol are her house,[#A term for the place where the dead reside, i.e., the Underworld]