Seen from a Window
1My son, keep my words, and store up my commandments within you. 2Keep my commandments and live; keep my teaching as the apple of your eye. 3Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. 4Say to Wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your kinswoman, 5to keep you from the woman who is not yours, from the foreign woman with her smooth words. 6For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice, 7and I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who lacked sense, 8passing along the street near her corner, striding down the way to her house, 9at twilight, as the day faded, in the dead of night and the dark. 10And look, a woman comes to meet him, dressed like a prostitute and with a guarded heart. 11She is loud and headstrong; her feet never stay at home: 12now in the street, now in the squares, at every corner she lurks. 13She grabs him and kisses him; with a brazen face she says to him,
Her Invitation
14“Peace offerings were due from me; today I have paid my vows. 15That is why I came out to meet you, to look eagerly for your face—and I have found you! 16I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens from Egypt; 17I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. 18Come, let us drink our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses. 19For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey. 20He took a bag of money in his hand; he will not come home until the full moon.” 21With her many persuasions she turns him aside; with her smooth lips she drives him on. 22All at once he follows her, like an ox going to the slaughter, like a fettered man to the discipline of the senseless, 23until an arrow splits his liver; like a bird rushing into a trap, not knowing it will cost him his life. 24Now then, sons, listen to me, and pay attention to the words of my mouth. 25Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray onto her pathways; 26for many are the victims she has brought down, and countless all those she has slain. 27Her house is the ways to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.
