My son, attend to my wisdom,{HR}Incline thine ear to mine understanding,
That thou mayest keep reflection,{HR}And thy lips may preserve knowledge.
For the lips of a strange woman drop honey,{HR}And her mouth [is] smoother than oil:
But her end is bitter as wormwood,{HR}Sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death;{HR}Her steps take hold on Sheol.
Lest she should ponder the path of life,{HR}Her ways are unstable, she knoweth [it] not.
And now, children, hearken to me,{HR}And depart not from the words of my mouth.
Remove thy way far from her,{HR}And come not nigh the door of her house;
Lest thou give thine honour to others,{HR}And thy years to the cruel;
Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth,{HR}And thy labours [go] to the house of an alien;
And thou mourn in thine end,{HR}When thy flesh and thy body are consumed;
And thou say, How have I hated instruction,{HR}And my heart despised reproof;
And I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers,{HR}Nor inclined mine ear to those that instructed me!
I was well nigh in all evil{HR}In the midst of the congregation and assembly.
Drink waters out of thine own cistern,{HR}And running waters out of thine own well.
Should thy fountains be dispersed abroad,{HR}And rivers of water in the broadways?
Let them be only thine own,{HR}And not for strangers with thee.
Let thy fountain be blessed;{HR}Rejoice in the wife of thy youth.
A lovely hind and a, graceful doe, {sup}{HR}{/sup}Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times;{HR}With her love be ravished continually.
And why shouldest thou, my son,{HR}Be ravished with a strange woman,{HR}And embrace the bosom of a stranger?
For the ways of man are before Jehovah’s eyes,{HR}And he pondereth all his paths.
His own iniquities shall take the wicked,{HR}And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.
He shall die for lack of discipline;{HR}And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.