1My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,
2to guard discretion, that your lips may keep knowledge.
3For the lips of a strange woman drip honey, and her palate is smoother than oil.
4But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5Her feet go down to death; her steps lay hold of Sheol.
6Lest she level the path of life, her tracks wander, and you do not know it.
7And now, sons, listen to me, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
8Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,
9lest you give your vigor to others and your years to a cruel one,
10lest strangers be sated with your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
11and you groan at your end, when your flesh and your body are consumed,
12and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised correction!
13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, nor incline my ear to my instructors.
14I was soon in utter ruin, in the midst of the assembly and the congregation.”
15Drink water from your own cistern, and flowing water from the midst of your own well.
16Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the squares?
17Let them be for you alone, and not for strangers with you.
18May your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19a loving doe, a graceful mountain-goat; may her breasts satisfy you at all times; in her love may you be intoxicated continually.
20And why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?
21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of Yahweh, and he weighs all his tracks.
22His iniquities will capture him, the wicked man, and by the cords of his sin he will be held fast.
23He will die for lack of discipline, and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.
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