Proverbs

5 My son, to my wisdom attend, And to mine understanding incline thou thine ear:

2 That thou mayest preserve discretion,—And as for knowledge that thy lips may guard it.

3 For with sweet droppings drip the lips of her that is a stranger, And smoother than oil is her mouth;

4 But the latter end of her is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword!

5 Her feet are going down to death,—On hades will her steps take firm hold.

6 Lest the path of life she should ponder Her tracks have wandered she knoweth not [whither].

7 Now therefore, ye sons, hearken unto me, And do not turn away from the sayings of my mouth.

8 Keep far from her thy way, And do not go near the opening of her house:

9 Lest thou give to other men thy vigour, And thy years to him that is cruel:

10 Lest strange men be well fed by thy strength, And thy toils be in the house of the alien.

11 So shalt thou grieve in thy latter end, In the failing of thy flesh and of thy healthy condition;

12 And thou shalt say—How I hated correction! And reproof my heart disdained;

13 Neither hearkened I to the voice of my teachers, Nor to my instructors inclined I mine ear:

14 Soon was I in all evil, In the midst of convocation and assembly.

15 Drink thou water out of thine own cistern, And flowing streams out of the midst of thine own well.

16 Let not thy fountains flow over abroad In the streets dividings of waters:

17 Let them be for thyself alone,—And not for strangers with thee.

18 Let thy well-spring be blessed,—And get thy joy from the wife of thy youth:—

19 A loving hind! a graceful doe! Let her bosom content thee at all times, And in her love mayst thou stray evermore.

20 Wherefore then shouldst thou stray, my son, with a strange woman? Or embrace the bosom of a woman unknown?

21 For before the eyes of Yahweh are the ways of a man,—And all his tracks doth he consider:

22 His own iniquities shall entrap him with the lawless, And by the cords of his own sin shall he be seized.

23 He shall die for lack of discipline, And by the abounding of his perversity shall he be lost.