[1] My son, attend unto my wisdom; incline thine ear to my understanding:
[2] That thou mayest preserve discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
[3] For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
[4] But her latter end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
[5] Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on Sheol;
[6] So that she findeth not the level path of life: her ways are unstable and she knoweth it not.
[7] Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
[8] Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
[9] Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
[10] Lest strangers be filled with thy strength; and thy labours be in the house of an alien;
[11] And thou mourn at thy latter end, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
[12] And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
[13] Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
[14] I was well nigh in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
[15] Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
[16] Should thy springs be dispersed abroad, and rivers of water in the streets?
[17] Let them be for thyself alone, and not for strangers with thee.
[18] Let thy fountain be blessed; and rejoice in the wife of thy youth.
[19] As a loving hind and a pleasant doe, let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
[20] For why shouldest thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
[21] For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he maketh level all his paths.
[22] His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.
[23] He shall die for lack of instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.