Verse 1
My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
Verse 2
That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
Verse 3
For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
Verse 4
But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.
Verse 5
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
Verse 6
Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
Verse 7
Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
Verse 8
Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
Verse 9
Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
Verse 10
Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
Verse 11
And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
Verse 12
And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
Verse 13
And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
Verse 14
I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
Verse 15
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
Verse 16
Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
Verse 17
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
Verse 18
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Verse 19
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
Verse 20
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Verse 21
For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.
Verse 22
His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
Verse 23
He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.