Proverbs

¹My son, pay attention to my wisdom, and incline your ear to my prudence, ↗

²so that you may guard your thinking, and so that your lips may preserve discipline. Do not pay attention to the deceit of a woman. ↗

³For the lips of a loose woman are like a dripping honeycomb, and her voice is smoother than oil. ↗

⁴But in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword. ↗

⁵Her feet descend into death, and her steps reach even to Hell. ↗

⁶They do not walk along the path of life; her steps are wandering and untraceable. ↗

⁷Therefore, my son, listen to me now, and do not withdraw from the words of my mouth. ↗

⁸Make your way at a distance from her, and do not approach the doors of her house. ↗

⁹Do not give your honor to foreigners, and your years to the cruel. ↗

¹⁰Otherwise, outsiders may be filled with your strength, and your labors may be in a foreign house, ↗

¹¹and you may mourn in the end, when you will have consumed your flesh and your body. And so you may say: ↗

¹²”Why have I detested discipline, and why has my heart not been quieted by correction? ↗

¹³And why have I not listened to the voice of those who guided me? And why has my ear not inclined to my teachers? ↗

¹⁴I have almost been with all evil in the midst of the church and of the assembly.“ ↗

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern and from the springs of your own well. ↗

¹⁶Let your fountains be diverted far and wide, and divide your waters in the streets. ↗

¹⁷Hold them for yourself alone, and do not let strangers be partakers with you. ↗

¹⁸Let your spring be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth: ↗

¹⁹a beloved doe and most pleasing fawn. Let her breasts inebriate you at all times. Be delighted continually by her love. ↗

²⁰Why are you seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and why are you kept warm by the bosom of another? ↗

²¹The Lord beholds the ways of man, and he considers all his steps. ↗

²²His own iniquities take hold of the impious, and he is bound by the cords of his own sins. ↗

²³He shall die, for he has not held to discipline. And by the multitude of his foolishness, he shall be deceived. ↗