The Proverbs

My son! Give attention to my wisdom, || Incline your ear to my understanding,

To observe thoughtfulness, || And your lips keep knowledge.

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

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

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

The path of life—lest you ponder, || Her paths have moved—you do not know.

And now, you sons, listen to me, || And do not turn from sayings of my mouth.

Keep your way far from off her, || And do not come near to the opening of her house,

Lest you give your splendor to others, || And your years to the fierce,

Lest strangers be filled [with] your power, || And your labors in the house of a stranger,

And you have howled in your latter end, || In the consumption of your flesh and your food,

And have said, “How I have hated instruction, || And my heart has despised reproof,

And I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, || And have not inclined my ear to my teachers.

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

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

Let your fountains be scattered abroad, || In broad places streams of waters.

Let them be to you for yourself, || And not to strangers with you.

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

A doe of loves, and a roe of grace! Let her loves satisfy you at all times, || Magnify yourself in her love continually.

And why do you magnify yourself, || My son, with a stranger? And embrace the bosom of a strange woman?

For the ways of each are before the eyes of YHWH, || And He is pondering all his paths.

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

He dies without instruction, || And magnifies himself in the abundance of his folly!