Proverbs 5

¹ My son, pay attention to my wisdom, listen carefully to what I know,

² and so have prudence and knowledge to protect you; these will keep a guard on your lips.

³ Take no notice of a loose-living woman, for the lips of this alien drip with honey, her words are smoother than oil,

⁴ but their outcome is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵ Her feet go down to death, her steps lead down to Sheol;

⁶ far from following the path of life, her ways are undirected, irresponsible.

⁷ And now, my son, listen to me, never deviate from what I say:

⁸ set your course as far from her as possible, go nowhere near the door of her house,

⁹ or you will surrender your honour to others, your years to one who has no pity,

¹⁰ and strangers will batten on your property, your labours going to some alien house,

¹¹ and, at your ending, when body and flesh are consumed, you will groan

¹² and exclaim, ‘Alas, I hated discipline, my heart spurned all correction;

¹³ I would not hear the voice of my masters, I would not listen to those who tried to teach me.

¹⁴ Now I am all but reduced to the depths of misery, in the presence of the whole community.’

¹⁵ Drink the water from your own cistern, fresh water from your own well.[*a]

¹⁶ Do not let your fountains flow to waste elsewhere, nor your streams in the public streets.

¹⁷ Let them be for yourself alone, not for strangers at the same time.

¹⁸ And may your fountain-head be blessed! Find joy with the wife you married in your youth,

¹⁹ fair as a hind, graceful as a fawn. Let hers be the company you keep, hers the breasts that ever fill you with delight, hers the love that ever holds you captive.

²⁰ Why be seduced, my son, by an alien woman, and fondle the breast of a woman who is a stranger?

²¹ For the eyes of Yahweh observe a man’s ways and survey all his paths.

²² The wicked man is snared in his own misdeeds, is caught in the meshes of his own sin.

²³ For want of discipline, he dies, and is lost through his own excessive folly.