1 M y son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:

2 t hat thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

3 F or the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

4 b ut her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.

5 H er feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

6 L est thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

7 H ear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

8 R emove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

9 l est thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

10 l est strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

11 a nd thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

12 a nd say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

13 a nd have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

15 D rink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

16 L et thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

17 L et them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.

18 L et thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

19 L et her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

20 A nd why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

21 F or the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings.

22 H is own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

23 H e shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.