1My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my discernment,
2in order that you keep discretion, and your lips guard knowledge.
3For the lips of the strange woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil,
4but in the end she is bitter as wormwood; she is sharp as a two-edged sword.
5Her feet go down to death; her steps proceed toward Sheol.
6She will not consider the path of life; her ways are unstable,a yet she is not aware of it.
7But now, my sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8Keep your road far from her, and do not go near to the door of her house,
9lest you give your honorb to others, and your years to a cruel person;
10lest strangers eat their fill from your strength, and your hard-earned goods end up in the house of a foreigner,
11and in the end you groan when your flesh—even your body—are used up.
12Then you will say, “O how I have hated discipline, and my heart has spurned reproof.
13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, nor did I incline my ear to those instructing me.
14I was soon in all sorts of trouble in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
15Drink water from your own cistern, and fresh water from the midst of your own well.
16Should your springs overflow outside, streams of water in the open places?
17Let them be for you alone, and not for strangers with you.
18Let your fountain be continually blessed, and rejoice because of the wife of your youth.
19She is a loving doe and a graceful mountain goat; let her breasts satisfy you at every opportune time— going astray in her love.
20So why go astray, my son, with a strange woman, and why do you embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?
21For a person’s waysc are before the eyes of Yahweh, and he weighs all his paths.
22The one acting wickedly—his own iniquities will capture him, and he will be seized by the cords of his own sin.
23He will die because of lack of discipline, and in the abundance of his foolishness he goes astray.
REV Bible
