Proverbs 5
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,
My son, attend unto my wisdom; to my understanding incline thou thy ear:
2 that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.
That thou mayest observe discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,
For as of fine honey drop the lips of an adulterous woman, and smoother than oil is her palate;
4 in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.
But her end is bitter as wormwood, it is sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death, her steps take firm hold on the nether world: (Sheol h7585)
6 She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.
So that she cannot balance the path of life; her tracks are unsteady, and she knoweth it not.
7 So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
And now, O ye children, hearken unto me, and depart not from the sayings of my mouth.
8 Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house,
Remove far from her thy way, and come not nigh to the door of her house;
9 lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;
That thou mayest not give up unto others thy vigor, and thy years unto the cruel;
10 lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.
That strangers may not satisfy themselves with thy strength, and with thy exertions, in the house of an alien:
11 At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,
While thou moanest at thy end, when thy flesh and thy body are coming to their end,
12 and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
And thou sayest, How have I hated correction, and how hath my heart rejected reproof;
13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.
While I hearkened not to the voice of my instructors, and to my teachers I inclined not my ear;
14 I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”
But little more was wanting, and I had been in all [kinds of] unhappiness in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
15 Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
Drink water out of thy own cistern, and running waters out of thy own well.
16 Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
So will thy springs overflow abroad; and in the open streets will be thy rivulets of water;
17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
They will be thy own only, and not those of strangers with thee.
18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
Thy fountain will 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.
The lovely gazelle and the graceful chamois: let her bosom satisfy thee abundantly at all times; with her love be thou ravished continually.
20 Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with an adulteress, and embrace the bosom of an alien woman?
21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.
For before the eyes of the Lord are the ways of man, and all his tracks doth he weigh in the balance.
22 The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.
His own iniquities will truly catch the wicked, and with the cords of his sin will he be held firmly.
23 He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.
He will indeed die for want of correction; and through the abundance of his folly will he sink into error.
