✧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;
American Standard Version (ASV). American Standard Version (1901). Public domain.
✧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.
✧19[As] 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.