¶ My son, attend¹ unto my wisdom, and bow² thine ear to my understanding:

That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips³ may keep knowledge.

For the lips⁴ of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth⁵ is smoother than oil:

But her⁶ end is bitter as wormwood, sharp⁷ as a twoedged sword.

⁸Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

Lest thou shouldest ponder⁹ the path¹⁰ of life, her¹¹ ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

Hear¹² me now therefore, O ye children, and depart¹³ not from the words of my mouth.

¹⁴Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

¹⁵Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

¶ Lest strangers¹⁶ be filled with thy wealth¹⁷; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

And thou¹⁸ mourn at the last, when¹⁹ thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

And say, How²⁰ have I hated instruction, and my²¹ heart despised reproof;

²²And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

²³I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

¶²⁴Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

Let thy²⁵ fountains be dispersed²⁶ abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

Let them be only thine own, and not strangers²⁷' with thee.

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice²⁸ with the wife of thy youth.

Let her be as the²⁹ loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee³⁰ at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love³¹.

¶ And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with³² a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

³³For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

His³⁴ own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden³⁵ with the cords of his sins³⁶.

He shall die³⁷ without instruction; and in the³⁸ greatness of his folly he shall go astray.