✧1My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. ✧2Keep my commandments and live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. ✧3Tie them to your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. ✧4Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your kinsman, ✧5that they may keep you from the adulteress, from the stranger with seductive words. ✧6For at the window of my house I looked through the lattice. ✧7I saw among the simple, I noticed among the youths, a young man lacking judgment, ✧8crossing the street near her corner, strolling down the road to her house, ✧9at twilight, as the day was fading into the dark of the night.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Dedicated to the public domain by the rights holder.
✧10Then a woman came out to meet him, with the attire of a harlot and cunning of heart.
✧11She is loud and defiant; her feet do not remain at home.
✧12Now in the street, now in the squares, she lurks at every corner.
✧13She seizes him and kisses him; she brazenly says to him:
✧14“I have made my peace offerings; today I have paid my vows.
✧15So I came out to meet you; I sought you, and I have found you.
✧16I have decked my bed with coverings, with colored linen from Egypt.
✧17I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, with aloes, and with cinnamon.
✧18Come, let us take our fill of love till morning. Let us delight in loving caresses!
✧19For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.
✧20He took with him a bag of money and will not return till the moon is full.”
✧21With her great persuasion she entices him; with her flattering lips she lures him.
✧22He follows her on impulse, like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer bounding into a trap,
✧23until an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare— not knowing it will cost him his life.
✧24Now, my sons, listen to me, and attend to the words of my mouth.
✧25Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths.
✧26For she has brought many down to death; her slain are many in number.
✧27Her house is the road to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death.