The Woman Who Is Not Yours
1My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, 2so that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. 3For the lips of the woman who is not yours drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; 4but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword. 5Her feet go down to death; her steps lay hold of Sheol. 6She gives no thought to the path of life; her tracks wander, and she does not know it. 7Now then, sons, listen to me, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. 8Keep your way far from her; do not go near the door of her house, 9or you will give your vigor to others and your years to someone cruel; 10strangers will feast on your strength, and your labors will end up in a foreigner’s house, 11and you will groan at your end, when your flesh and your body waste away, 12and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and how my heart spurned reproof! 13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to those who instructed me. 14I was on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and the congregation.”
Drink from Your Own Well
15Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. 16Should your springs be scattered outside, streams of water in the squares? 17Let them be yours alone, and not for strangers with you. 18Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth— 19a loving doe, a graceful deer: let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be lost in her love always. 20Why, my son, be lost in the woman who is not yours, and embrace the bosom of the foreign woman? 21For a man’s ways are right before the eyes of Yahweh, and he weighs all his tracks. 22His own iniquities catch the wicked man, and he is held fast by the cords of his sin. 23He will die for lack of discipline, and in his great folly he will be lost.
