Proverbs 5

A Warning Against Committing Adultery

5My son, pay attention to my wisdom.

Listen carefully to my wise sayings.

²Then you will continue to have good sense.

Your lips will keep on speaking words of knowledge.

³A woman who commits adultery has lips that drip honey.

What she says is smoother than oil.

⁴But in the end she is like bitter poison.

She cuts like a sword that has two edges.

⁵Her feet go down to death.

Her steps lead straight to the grave.

⁶She doesn’t give any thought to her way of life.

Her paths are crooked, but she doesn’t realize it.

⁷My sons, listen to me.

Don’t turn away from what I say.

⁸Stay on a path far away from that evil woman.

Don’t even go near the door of her house.

⁹If you do, you will give your best strength to others.

You will give the best years of your life to someone who is mean.

¹⁰Strangers will use up all of your wealth.

Your hard work will make someone else rich.

¹¹At the end of your life you will groan.

Your skin and your body will be worn out.

¹²You will say, “How I hated to take advice!

How my heart refused to be corrected!

¹³I would not obey my teachers.

I wouldn’t listen to those who taught me.

¹⁴I was almost totally destroyed.

It happened right in front of the whole community.”

¹⁵Drink water from your own well.

Drink running water from your own spring.

¹⁶Should your springs pour out into the streets?

Should your streams of water pour out in public places?

¹⁷No! Let them belong to you alone.

Never share them with strangers.

¹⁸May your fountain be blessed.

May the wife you married when you were young make you happy.

¹⁹She is like a loving doe, a graceful deer.

May her breasts always satisfy you.

May you always be captured by her love.

²⁰My son, why be captured by a woman who commits adultery?

Why hug the wife of another man?

²¹The Lord watches a man’s ways.

He studies all of his paths.

²²A sinner is trapped by his own evil acts.

He is held tight by the ropes of his sins.

²³He will die because he refused to be corrected.

His sins will capture him because he was very foolish.