5
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
2 so that you may preserve discretion and your lips may guard knowledge.
3 For the lips of an adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,
4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead to Sheol.
6 She does not consider the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.
7 Now, sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
8 Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,
9 lest you give your honor to others and your years to someone cruel;
10 lest strangers feast on your strength, and your toil go to the house of a foreigner;
11 and you groan at your end, when your flesh and body are consumed,
12 and say, “How I hated discipline!
How my heart despised correction!
13 I did not obey the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to those who instructed me.
14 I was on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your springs be scattered outside, streams of water in the squares?
17 Let them be yours alone, and not shared with strangers.
18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a loving doe, a graceful wild goat.
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
be always intoxicated with her love.
20 Why, my son, should you be intoxicated with an adulterous woman and embrace the bosom of an unfaithful woman?
21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he examines all his paths.
22 The wicked man’s own iniquities will capture him;
he will be held in the cords of his sin.
23 He will die for lack of discipline;
in his great folly he will go astray.