Proverbs 5
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom, and incline your ear to my prudence,
My son, give attention to my wisdom; let your ear be turned to my teaching:
2 so that you may guard your thinking, and so that your lips may preserve discipline. Do not pay attention to the deceit of a woman.
So that you may be ruled by a wise purpose, and your lips may keep knowledge.
3 For the lips of a loose woman are like a dripping honeycomb, and her voice is smoother than oil.
For honey is dropping from the lips of the strange woman, and her mouth is smoother than oil;
4 But in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword.
But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword;
Her feet go down to death, and her steps to the underworld; (Sheol h7585)
6 They do not walk along the path of life; her steps are wandering and untraceable.
She never keeps her mind on the road of life; her ways are uncertain, she has no knowledge.
7 Therefore, my son, listen to me now, and do not withdraw from the words of my mouth.
Give ear to me then, my sons, and do not put away my words from you.
8 Make your way at a distance from her, and do not approach the doors of her house.
Go far away from her, do not come near the door of her house;
9 Do not give your honor to foreigners, and your years to the cruel.
For fear that you may give your honour to others, and your wealth to strange men:
10 Otherwise, outsiders may be filled with your strength, and your labors may be in a foreign house,
And strange men may be full of your wealth, and the fruit of your work go to the house of others;
11 and you may mourn in the end, when you will have consumed your flesh and your body. And so you may say:
And you will be full of grief at the end of your life, when your flesh and your body are wasted;
12 “Why have I detested discipline, and why has my heart not been quieted by correction?
And you will say, How was teaching hated by me, and my heart put no value on training;
13 And why have I not listened to the voice of those who guided me? And why has my ear not inclined to my teachers?
I did not give attention to the voice of my teachers, my ear was not turned to those who were guiding me!
14 I have almost been with all evil in the midst of the church and of the assembly.”
I was in almost all evil in the company of the people.
15 Drink water from your own cistern and from the springs of your own well.
Let water from your store and not that of others be your drink, and running water from your fountain.
16 Let your fountains be diverted far and wide, and divide your waters in the streets.
Let not your springs be flowing in the streets, or your streams of water in the open places.
17 Hold them for yourself alone, and do not let strangers be partakers with you.
Let them be for yourself only, not for other men with you.
18 Let your spring be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth:
Let blessing be on your fountain; have joy in the wife of your early years.
19 a beloved doe and most pleasing fawn. Let her breasts inebriate you at all times. Be delighted continually by her love.
As a loving hind and a gentle doe, let her breasts ever give you rapture; let your passion at all times be moved by her love.
20 Why are you seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and why are you kept warm by the bosom of another?
Why let yourself, my son, go out of the way with a strange woman, and take another woman in your arms?
21 The Lord beholds the ways of man, and he considers all his steps.
For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he puts all his goings in the scales.
22 His own iniquities take hold of the impious, and he is bound by the cords of his own sins.
The evil-doer will be taken in the net of his crimes, and prisoned in the cords of his sin.
23 He shall die, for he has not held to discipline. And by the multitude of his foolishness, he shall be deceived.
He will come to his end for need of teaching; he is so foolish that he will go wandering from the right way.
