Proverbs 5
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ears to my understanding,
My son, to my wisdom, attend, and, to mine understanding, incline thou thine ear:
2 so you may learn about discretion and your lips may protect knowledge.
That thou mayest preserve discretion, —and, as for knowledge, that thy lips may guard it.
3 For the lips of an adulteress drip with honey and her mouth is smoother than oil,
For, with sweet droppings, drip the lips of her that is a stranger, and, smoother than oil, is her mouth;
4 but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, cutting like a sharp sword.
But, the latter end of her, is bitter as wormwood, sharp, as a two-edged sword!
Her feet, are going down to death, —on hades, will her steps take firm hold. (Sheol h7585)
6 She gives no thought to the path of life. Her footsteps wander; she does not know where she is going.
Lest, the path of life, she should ponder, her tracks have wandered she knoweth not [whither].
7 Now, my sons, listen to me; do not turn away from listening to the words of my mouth.
Now, therefore, ye sons, hearken unto me, and do not turn away from the sayings of my mouth.
8 Keep your path far away from her and do not come near the door of her house.
Keep far from her thy way, and do not go near the opening of her house:
9 In that way you will not give away your honor to others or years of your life to a cruel person;
Lest thou give, to other men, thy vigour, and thy years, to him that is cruel:
10 strangers will not feast on your wealth; what you have worked for will not go into the house of strangers.
Lest strange men, be well fed, by thy strength, and, thy toils, be in the house of the alien.
11 At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body waste away.
So shalt thou grieve in thy latter end, in the failing of thy flesh and of thy healthy condition;
12 You will say, “How I hated instruction and my heart despised correction!
And thou shalt say—How I hated correction! and, reproof, my heart disdained;
13 I would not obey my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.
Neither hearkened I to the voice of my teachers, nor, to my instructors, inclined I mine ear:
14 I was almost completely ruined in the midst of the assembly, among the gathering of the people.”
Soon was I in all evil, in the midst of convocation and assembly.
15 Drink water from your own cistern and drink running water from your own well.
Drink thou water out of thine own cistern, and flowing streams out of the midst of thine own well.
16 Should your springs overflow everywhere and your streams of water flow in the public squares?
Let not thy fountains, flow over, abroad, in the streets, dividings of waters:
17 Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you.
Let them be for thyself, alone, and not for strangers with thee.
18 May your fountain be blessed and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth,
Let thy well-spring be blessed, —and get thy joy from the wife of thy youth: —
19 for she is a loving deer and a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be continually intoxicated by her love.
A loving hind! a graceful doe! let, her bosom, content thee at all times, and, in her love, mayst thou stray evermore.
20 For why should you, my son, be captivated by an adulteress; why should you embrace the breasts of an immoral woman?
Wherefore, then, shouldst thou stray, my son, with a strange woman? or embrace the bosom of a woman unknown?
21 Yahweh sees everything a person does and watches all the paths he takes.
For, before the eyes of Yahweh, are the ways of a man, —and, all his tracks, doth he consider:
22 A wicked person will be seized by his own iniquities; the cords of his sin will hold him tight.
His own iniquities, shall entrap him with the lawless, and, by the cords of his own sin, shall he be seized.
23 He will die because he lacks instruction; he is led astray by his great foolishness.
He, shall die, for lack of discipline, and, by the abounding of his perversity, shall he be lost.
