Proverbs 5

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.