Proverbs 5:2–20

²so that you may hold on to prudence,

and your lips may guard knowledge.

³For the lips of a loose woman^h drip honey,

and her speech 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 follow the path to Sheol.

⁶She does not keep straight to the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.

⁷And now, my child,ⁱ listen to me,

and do not depart from the words of my mouth.^*

⁸Keep your way far from her,

and do not go near the door of her house,^*

⁹lest you give your honor to others

and your years to the merciless,

¹⁰and strangers take their fill of your wealth,

and your labors go to the house of an alien,

¹¹and at the end of your life you groan,

when your flesh and body are consumed,

¹²and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof!^*

¹³I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my instructors.

¹⁴Now I am at the point of utter ruin

in the public assembly.”

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well.

¹⁶Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets?^*

¹⁷Let them be for yourself alone

and not for sharing with strangers.

¹⁸Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,^*

¹⁹a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

May her breasts satisfy you at all times;

may you be intoxicated always by her love.^*

²⁰Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?^j*