Proverbs 5
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,
My son, attend to my wisdom, and incline thy ear to my prudence.
2 that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.
That thou mayst keep thoughts, and thy lips may preserve instruction. Mind not the deceit of a woman.
3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,
For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb dropping, and her throat is smoother than oil.
4 in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.
But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down into death, and her steps go in as far as hell. (Sheol h7585)
6 She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.
They walk not by the path of life, her steps are wandering, and unaccountable.
7 So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
Now therefore, my son, hear me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8 Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house,
Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the doors of her house.
9 lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;
Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel.
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 be in another man’s house,
11 At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,
And thou mourn it the last, when thou shalt have spent thy flesh and thy body, and say:
12 and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
Why have I hated instruction, and my heart consented not to reproof,
13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.
And have not heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not inclined my ear to masters?
14 I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”
I have almost been in all evil, in the midst of the church and of the congregation.
15 Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well:
16 Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters.
17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee.
18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
Let thy vein be blessed, 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 her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times; he thou delighted continually with her love.
20 Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another?
21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.
The Lord beholdeth the ways of man, and considereth all his steps.
22 The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.
His own iniquities catch the wicked, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his own sins.
23 He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.
He shall die, because he hath not received instruction, and in the multitude of his folly he shall be deceived.
