Proverbs 5

¹ My son, attend unto my wisdom; incline thine ear to my understanding:

² That thou mayest preserve discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

³ For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

⁴ But her latter end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵ Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on Sheol;

⁶ So that she findeth not the level path of life: her ways are unstable and she knoweth it not.

⁷ Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

⁸ Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

⁹ Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

¹⁰ Lest strangers be filled with thy strength; and thy labours be in the house of an alien;

¹¹ And thou mourn at thy latter end, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

¹² And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

¹³ Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

¹⁴ I was well nigh in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

¹⁵ Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

¹⁶ Should thy springs be dispersed abroad, and rivers of water in the streets?

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

¹⁸ Let thy fountain be blessed; and rejoice in the wife of thy youth.

¹⁹ As a loving hind and a pleasant doe, let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

²⁰ For why shouldest thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

²¹ For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he maketh level all his paths.

²² His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.

²³ He shall die for lack of instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.