Chapter 5

  My son, attend unto my wisdom; Incline thine ear to my understanding:  

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  That thou mayest preserve discretion, And that thy lips may keep knowledge.  

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  For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil:  

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  But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword.  

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  Her feet go down to death; Her steps take hold on Sheol;  

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  So that she findeth not the level path of life: Her ways are unstable, [and] she knoweth [it] not.  

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  Now therefore, [my] sons, hearken unto me, And depart not from the words of my mouth.  

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  Remove thy way far from her, And come not nigh the door of her house;  

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  Lest thou give thine honor unto others, And thy years unto the cruel;  

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  Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, And thy labors [be] in the house of an alien,  

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  And thou mourn at thy latter end, When thy flesh and thy body are consumed,  

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  And say, How have I hated instruction, And my heart despised reproof;  

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  Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!  

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  I was well-nigh in all evil In the midst of the assembly and congregation.  

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  Drink waters out of thine own cistern, And running waters out of thine own well.  

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  Should thy springs be dispersed abroad, And streams of water in the streets?  

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  Let them be for thyself alone, And not for strangers with thee.  

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  Let thy fountain be blessed; And rejoice in the wife of thy youth.  

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  [As] a loving hind and a pleasant doe, Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; And be thou ravished always with her love.  

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  For why shouldest thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?  

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  For the ways of man are before the eyes of Jehovah; And he maketh level all his paths.  

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  His own iniquities shall take the wicked, And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.  

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  He shall die for lack of instruction; And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.  

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