1My son, hearken unto my wisdom, and incline thine ear unto my knowledge,
2That thou mayest regard counsel, and thy lips observe knowledge.
3For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is more soft than oil.
4But the end of her is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword.
5Her feet go down to death, and her steps take hold on hell.
6She weigheth not the way of life: her paths are moveable: thou canst not know them.
7Hear ye me now therefore, O children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8Keep thy way far from her, and come not near the door of her house,
9Lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years to the cruel:
10Lest the stranger should be filled with thy strength, and thy labors be in the house of a stranger,
11And thou mourn at thine end, (when thou hast consumed thy flesh and thy body)
12And say, How have I hated instruction, and mine heart despised correction!
13And have not obeyed the voice of them that taught me, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
14I was almost brought into all evil in the midst of the Congregation and assembly.
15Drink the water of thy cistern, and of the rivers out of the midst of thine own well.
16Let thy fountains flow forth, and the rivers of waters in the streets.
17But let them be thine, even thine only, and not the strangers with thee.
18Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
19Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe: let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and delight in her love continually.
20For why shouldest thou delight, my son, in a strange woman, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
21For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his paths.
22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his own sin.
23He shall die for fault of instruction, and shall go astray through his great folly.