✧1My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. ✧2Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. ✧3Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. ✧4Say unto wisdom, Thou [art] my sister; and call understanding [thy] kinswoman: ✧5That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger [which] flattereth with her words. ✧6For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, ✧7And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, ✧8Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, ✧9In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night:
King James Version (KJV). King James Version (1769 text). Public domain outside the United Kingdom.
✧10And, behold, there met him a woman [with] the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart.
✧11(She [is] loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house:
✧12Now [is she] without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)
✧13So she caught him, and kissed him, [and] with an impudent face said unto him,
✧14[I have] peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows.
✧15Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
✧16I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved [works], with fine linen of Egypt.
✧17I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
✧18Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
✧19For the goodman [is] not at home, he is gone a long journey:
✧20He hath taken a bag of money with him, [and] will come home at the day appointed.
✧21With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.
✧22He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks;
✧23Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it [is] for his life.
✧24Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth.
✧25Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
✧26For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong [men] have been slain by her.
✧27Her house [is] the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.