Chapter 5

My son! to my wisdom give attention, To mine understanding incline thine ear,

To observe thoughtfulness, And knowledge do thy lips keep.

For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And smoother than oil is her mouth,

And her latter end is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a sword with mouths.

Her feet are going down to death, Sheol do her steps take hold of.

The path of life -- lest thou ponder, Moved have her paths -- thou knowest not.

And now, ye sons, hearken to me, And turn not from sayings of my mouth.

Keep far from off her thy way, And come not near unto the opening of her house,

Lest thou give to others thy honour, And thy years to the fierce,

Lest strangers be filled with thy power, And thy labours in the house of a stranger,

And thou hast howled in thy latter end, In the consumption of thy flesh and thy food,

And hast said, `How have I hated instruction, And reproof hath my heart despised,

And I have not hearkened to the voice of my directors, And to my teachers have not inclined mine ear.

As a little thing I have been all evil, In the midst of an assembly and a company.

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, Even flowing ones out of thine own well.

Let thy fountains be scattered abroad, In broad places rivulets of waters.

Let them be to thee for thyself, And not to strangers with thee.

Let thy fountain be blessed, And rejoice because of the wife of thy youth,

A hind of loves, and a roe of grace! Let her loves satisfy thee at all times, In her love magnify thyself continually.

And why dost thou magnify thyself, My son, with a stranger? And embrace the bosom of a strange woman?

For over-against the eyes of Yehovah are the ways of each, And all his paths He is pondering.

His own iniquities do capture the wicked, And with the ropes of his sin he is holden.

He dieth without instruction, And in the abundance of his folly magnifieth himself!