Proverbs 7

¹ My son, keep my words. Lay up my commandments within you.

² Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.

³ Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴ Tell wisdom, “You are my sister.” Call understanding your relative,

⁵ that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreigner who flatters with her words.

⁶ For at the window of my house, I looked out through my lattice.

⁷ I saw among the simple ones. I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding,

⁸ passing through the street near her corner, he went the way to her house,

⁹ in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the middle of the night and in the darkness.

¹⁰ Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute, and with crafty intent.

¹¹ She is loud and defiant. Her feet don’t stay in her house.

¹² Now she is in the streets, now in the squares, and lurking at every corner.

¹³ So she caught him, and kissed him. With an impudent face she said to him:

¹⁴ “Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me. Today I have paid my vows.

¹⁵ Therefore I came out to meet you, to diligently seek your face, and I have found you.

¹⁶ I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.

¹⁷ I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸ Come, let’s take our fill of loving until the morning. Let’s solace ourselves with loving.

¹⁹ For my husband isn’t at home. He has gone on a long journey.

²⁰ He has taken a bag of money with him. He will come home at the full moon.”

²¹ With persuasive words, she led him astray. With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him.

²² He followed her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a fool stepping into a noose.

²³ Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.

²⁴ Now therefore, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words of my mouth.

²⁵ Don’t let your heart turn to her ways. Don’t go astray in her paths,

²⁶ for she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty army.

²⁷ Her house is the way to Sheol,¹ going down to the rooms of death.