< Proverbs 5 >
1 My son! Give attention to my wisdom, Incline your ear to my understanding,
2 To observe thoughtfulness, And your lips keep knowledge.
3 For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth [is] smoother than oil,
4 And her latter end [is] bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a sword [with] mouths.
5 Her feet are going down to death, Her steps take hold of Sheol. (Sheol )
6 The path of life—lest you ponder, Her paths have moved—you do not know.
7 And now, you sons, listen to me, And do not turn from sayings of my mouth.
8 Keep your way far from off her, And do not come near to the opening of her house,
9 Lest you give your splendor to others, And your years to the fierce,
10 Lest strangers be filled [with] your power, And your labors in the house of a stranger,
11 And you have howled in your latter end, In the consumption of your flesh and your food,
12 And have said, “How I have hated instruction, And my heart has despised reproof,
13 And I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, And have not inclined my ear to my teachers.
14 As a little thing I have been all evil, In the midst of an assembly and a congregation.”
15 Drink waters out of your own cistern, Even flowing ones out of your own well.
16 Let your fountains be scattered abroad, In broad places streams of waters.
17 Let them be to you for yourself, And not to strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice because of the wife of your youth,
19 A doe of loves, and a roe of grace! Let her loves satisfy you at all times, Magnify yourself in her love continually.
20 And why do you magnify yourself, My son, with a stranger? And embrace the bosom of a strange woman?
21 For the ways of each are before the eyes of YHWH, And He is pondering all his paths.
22 His own iniquities capture the wicked, And he is holden with the ropes of his sin.
23 He dies without instruction, And magnifies himself in the abundance of his folly!
