5:1 My son, attend to my wisdom; bow your ear to my understanding; |
5:2 That you may keep discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge. |
5:3 For the lips of a wanton woman drip as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil; |
5:4 But her end is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. |
5:5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on the grave. |
5:6 She does not ponder the path of life; her ways are unstable—you cannot know them. |
5:7 Now therefore hear me, O you children, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. |
5:8 Remove your ways far from her, and do not come near the door of her house, |
5:9 Lest you give your honor unto others and your years unto the cruel; |
5:10 Lest strangers be filled with your wealth, and your labors be in the house of a stranger; |
5:11 And you moan when your end comes, when your flesh and your body are consumed, |
5:12 And say, "How I hated instruction, and my heart despised correction; |
5:13 And I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ears to those who taught me! |
5:14 I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the congregation and assembly." |
5:15 Drink waters out of your own cistern and running waters out of your own well. |
5:16 Let your fountains be dispersed abroad as rivers of waters in the streets. |
5:17 Let them be only your own, and not strangers' with you. |
5:18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. |
5:19 Let her be as the loving deer and pleasant doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times, and be ravished always with her love. |
5:20 For why will you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? |
5:21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and He ponders all his paths. |
5:22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be held with the cords of his sins. |
5:23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall breathe his last. |