[1] My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,
[2] that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.
[3] For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,
[4] but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
[5] Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;
[6] she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.
[7] And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
[8] Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,
[9] lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless,
[10] lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
[11] and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,
[12] and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
[13] “I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.
[14] “I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.”
[15] Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
[16] Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
[17] Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.
[18] Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
[19] a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.
[20] Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
[21] For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths.
[22] The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
[23] He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.