Proverbs 5
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,
My son, attend to my wisdom, and bow your ear to my understanding:
2 that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.
That you may regard discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge.
3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,
For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth 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, sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. (Sheol h7585)
6 She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.
Lest you should ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that you can not know them.
7 So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
Hear me now therefore, O you children, 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 your way far from her, and come not near the door of her house:
9 lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;
Lest you give your honor to others, and your 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 your wealth; and your labors be in the house of a stranger;
11 At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,
And you mourn at the last, when your flesh and your body are consumed,
12 and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.
And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to them that instructed me!
14 I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”
I was almost in all evil in the middle of the congregation and assembly.
15 Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
Drink waters out of your own cistern, and running waters out of your own well.
16 Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
Let your fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
Let them be only your own, and not strangers’ with you.
18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
Let your fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of your 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 as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy you at all times; and be you ravished always with her love.
20 Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
And why will you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.
For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his goings.
22 The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.
His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be held with the cords of his sins.
23 He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.
He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
