1My son, attend to my wisdom; Incline your ear to my understanding:
2That you may preserve discretion, And that your lips may keep knowledge.
3For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil:
4But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword.
5Her feet go down to death; Her steps take hold on Sheol;
6So that she does not find the level path of life: Her ways are unstable, and she does not know it.
7Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, And do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8Remove your way far from her, And do not come near the door of her house;
9Lest you give your honor to others, And your years to the cruel;
10Lest strangers be filled with your strength, And your labors be in the house of an alien,
11And you mourn at your latter end, When your flesh and your body are consumed,
12And say, How have I hated instruction, And my heart despised reproof;
13Nor have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!
14I was almost in all evil In the midst of the assembly and congregation.
15Drink waters out of your own cistern, And running waters out of your own well.
16Should your springs be dispersed abroad, And streams of water in the streets?
17Let them be for yourself alone, And not for strangers with you.
18Let your fountain be blessed; And rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19As a loving hind and a pleasant doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And be always ravished with her love.
20For why should you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
21For the ways of man are before the eyes of Yehovah; And he makes level all his paths.
22His own iniquities shall take the wicked, And he shall be held with the cords of his sin.
23He shall die for lack of instruction; And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.