Proverbs 5
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,
[My] son, attend to my wisdom, and apply thine ear to my words;
2 that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.
that thou mayest keep good understanding, and the discretion of my lips gives thee a charge. Give no heed to a worthless woman;
3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,
for honey drops from the lips of a harlot, who for a season pleases thy palate:
4 in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.
but afterwards thou wilt find her more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword.
For the feet of folly lead those who deal with her down to the grave with death; and her steps are not established. (Sheol h7585)
6 She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.
For she goes not upon the paths of life; but her ways are slippery, and not easily known.
7 So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
Now then, [my] son, hear me, and make not my words of none effect.
8 Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house,
Remove thy way far from her; draw not near to the doors of her house:
9 lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;
lest thou give away thy life to others, and thy substance to the merciless:
10 lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.
lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours come into the houses of strangers;
11 At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,
And thou repent at last, when the flesh of thy body is consumed,
12 and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
and thou shalt say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart avoided reproofs!
13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.
I heard not the voice of him that instructed me, and taught me, neither did I apply mine ear.
14 I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”
I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
15 Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
Drink waters out of thine own vessels, and out of thine own springing wells.
16 Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
Let not waters out of thy fountain be spilt by thee, but let thy waters go into thy streets.
17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
Let them be only thine own, and let no stranger partake with thee.
18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
Let thy fountain of water be [truly] thine own; and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
19 A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.
Let [thy] loving hart and thy graceful colt company with thee, and let her be considered thine own, and be with thee at all times; for ravished with her love thou shalt be greatly increased.
20 Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Be not intimate with a strange woman, neither fold thyself in the arms of a woman not thine own.
21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.
For the ways of a man are before the eyes of God, and he looks on all his paths.
22 The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.
Iniquities ensnare a man, and every one is bound in the chains of his own sins.
23 He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.
Such a man dies with the uninstructed; and he is cast forth from the abundance of his own substance, and has perished through folly.
