Proverbs 5–7

5My child, be attentive to my wisdom,

and to my understanding incline your ear;

²in order to keep prudence,

and knowledge will guard your lips.

³For the lips of the strange woman will drip honey,

and smoother than oil is her mouth.^a

⁴But her end is bitter as the wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death;

her steps take hold of Sheol.^b

⁶She does not observe^c the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.

Do Not Commit Adultery Against Wisdom

⁷Now, O children, listen to me;

do not depart from the sayings of my mouth.

⁸Keep your paths far from her,

and do not go near to the door of her house,

⁹lest you give your honor to the others,

and your years to the merciless,

¹⁰lest strangers take their fill of your strength,

and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,

¹¹and you groan at your end,

when your flesh and body are consumed,

¹²and say “How I hated discipline,

and I despised reproof!”

¹³and “I did not listen to the voice of my teachers,

and I did not incline my ear to my instructors!

¹⁴I was almost at utter^d ruin^e

in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern

and flowing waters from inside your own well.

¹⁶Shall your springs be scattered outward?

In the streets, shall there be streams of water?

¹⁷May they be yours alone,

and not for strangers who are with you.

¹⁸May your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife^f of your youth.

¹⁹She is a deer of love and a doe of grace;

may her breasts satisfy you always;^g

by her love may you be intoxicated continually.

²⁰Why should you be intoxicated, my child, by a strange woman,

and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?

²¹For before the eyes of Yahweh are human ways,^h

and all his paths he examines.

²²His iniquities shall ensnare him, the evildoer,

and in the vanity of his sin he shall be caught.

²³He shall die for lack ofⁱ discipline,

and in the greatness of his folly he shall be lost.

Against Pledges

6My child, if you have pledged to your neighbor,

if you have bound yourself^a to the stranger,

²if you are snared by the sayings of your mouth,

if you are caught by the sayings of your mouth,

³do this, then, my child, and save yourself,

for you have come into the palm of your neighbor’s hand:^b

Go, humble yourself, plead with your neighbor.

⁴Do not give sleep to your eyes,

or slumber to your eyelids.

⁵Save yourself like a gazelle from a hand,

or like a bird from the hand of a fowler.

Against Sloth

⁶Go to the ant, lazy!

Consider its ways and be wise.

⁷It has no chief,

officer, or ruler.

⁸In the summer, it prepares its food;

in the harvest, it gathers its sustenance.

⁹How long will you lie down, lazy?

When will you rise up from your sleep?

¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber,

a little folding of the hands for rest—

¹¹like a robber^c shall your poverty come,

and what you lack like an armed man.

Against Worthlessness

¹²A worthless man, an evil man,

goes around with deceitful speech.^d

¹³Winking in his eye, shuffling in his foot,

pointing in his fingers,

¹⁴perversion in his heart, he devises evil;

at all times he will send out discord.^e

¹⁵Upon such a man,^f suddenly shall his calamity come;

in a moment he will be damaged and there is no healing.^g

What Yahweh Hates

¹⁶There are six things Yahweh hates,

and seven things are abominations of his soul:^h

¹⁷haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

and hands that shed innocent blood,

¹⁸a devising heart, plans of deception,

feet that hurry to run to evil,ⁱ

¹⁹a false witness who breathes lies

and sends out discord^j between brothers.

Commandment and Instruction as Guardians

²⁰My child, keep the commandment of your father,

and do not disregard the instruction of your mother.

²¹Bind them on your heart continually;

tie them upon your neck.

²²When you walk,^k she^l will lead you,

When you lie down,^m she will watch over you,

and when you awake, she will converse with you.

²³For like a lamp is a commandment, and instruction is light,

and the way of lifeⁿ is the reproof of discipline,

²⁴in order to preserve you from an evil woman,^o

from the smoothness of the tongue of an adulteress.^p

²⁵Do not desire her beauty in your heart;

may she not capture you with her eyelashes.

²⁶For the price of a woman, a prostitute,^q is the price of a loaf of bread,

but the woman belonging to a man^r hunts precious life.

Warning Against Relations with a Married Woman

²⁷Can a man carry fire in his lap,

and his clothes not burn?

²⁸If a man walks upon the hot coals,

will his feet not be burned?

²⁹Thus, he who goes to the wife of his neighbor,

any who touches her shall not go unpunished.

³⁰People do not despise a thief when he steals

to fill himself^s when he is hungry.

³¹But if he is found, he will pay sevenfold,

every possession of his house he shall give.

³²He who commits adultery with a woman lacks sense,^t

he destroys himself^u who does it.

³³A wound and dishonor he will find,

and his disgrace will not be wiped out.

³⁴For jealousy is the fury of a husband,

and he will not show restraint on the day of revenge.

³⁵He will not accept any compensation,^v

and he will not be willing, though the bribe is large.

Warning Against the Strange Woman

7My child, guard my sayings;

store my commandments with you.

²Keep my commands and live,

and my teaching like the apple of your eye.^a

³Bind them on your fingers;

write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom,^b “you are my sister,”

and you shall call insight,^c “intimate friend.”^d

⁵In order to guard yourself from an adulteress,^e

from the foreigner who makes her words smooth.^f

⁶For at the window of my house,

through my lattice, I looked down.

⁷And I saw among the simple,

I observed among the youth,

a young man lacking sense,^g

⁸passing on the street at^h her corner,

and he takes the road to her house,

⁹at twilight, at the day’s evening,

in the midst of night and the darkness.

¹⁰Then behold! A woman comes to meet him

with the garment of a prostituteⁱ and a secret heart.^j

¹¹She is loud and stubborn;

her feet do not stay at her house.

¹²Now in the street, now in the square,

at^k every corner she lies in wait.

¹³She took hold of ^l him and kissed him.

Her face was impudent, and she said to him,

¹⁴“Sacrifices of peace offerings are upon me;

today^m I completed my vows.

¹⁵Soⁿ I have come out to meet you,

to seek your face, and I have found you.

¹⁶With coverings I have adorned my couch,

spreads of the linen of Egypt;

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,

aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love making,

until the morning let us delight in love.

¹⁹For there is no man^o in his home;

he has gone on a long journey.^p

²⁰The bag of money he took in his hand,

for on the day of the full moon he will come home.”

²¹She persuades him with the greatness of her teachings;

with her smooth lips she compels him.

²²He goes after her suddenly;

like an ox to the slaughter he goes,

and like a stag to the instruction of a fool,

²³until an arrow pierces his entrails,^q

like a bird rushing into a snare,

but he does not know that it will cost him his life.^r

Reiteration of the Warning Against a Strange Woman

²⁴And now, my children, listen to me,

and be attentive to the sayings of my mouth.

²⁵May your heart not turn aside to her ways;

do not stray into her path.

²⁶For many slain she has laid low,

and countless^s are all of her killings.

²⁷The ways of Sheol^t are her house,

descending to chambers of death.