| 1 | My son, pay attention to my wisdom, and incline your ear to my prudence, |
| 2 | so that you may guard your thinking, and so that your lips may preserve discipline. Do not pay attention to the deceit of a woman. |
| 3 | For the lips of a loose woman are like a dripping honeycomb, and her voice is smoother than oil. |
| 4 | But in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword. |
| 5 | Her feet descend into death, and her steps reach even to Hell. |
| 6 | They do not walk along the path of life; her steps are wandering and untraceable. |
| 7 | Therefore, my son, listen to me now, and do not withdraw from the words of my mouth. |
| 8 | Make your way at a distance from her, and do not approach the doors of her house. |
| 9 | Do not give your honor to foreigners, and your years to the cruel. |
| 10 | Otherwise, outsiders may be filled with your strength, and your labors may be in a foreign house, |
| 11 | and you may mourn in the end, when you will have consumed your flesh and your body. And so you may say: |
| 12 | "Why have I detested discipline, and why has my heart not been quieted by correction? |
| 13 | And why have I not listened to the voice of those who guided me? And why has my ear not inclined to my teachers? |
| 14 | I have almost been with all evil in the midst of the church and of the assembly." |
| 15 | Drink water from your own cistern and from the springs of your own well. |
| 16 | Let your fountains be diverted far and wide, and divide your waters in the streets. |
| 17 | Hold them for yourself alone, and do not let strangers be partakers with you. |
| 18 | Let your spring be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth: |
| 19 | a beloved doe and most pleasing fawn. Let her breasts inebriate you at all times. Be delighted continually by her love. |
| 20 | Why are you seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and why are you kept warm by the bosom of another? |
| 21 | The Lord beholds the ways of man, and he considers all his steps. |
| 22 | His own iniquities take hold of the impious, and he is bound by the cords of his own sins. |
| 23 | He shall die, for he has not held to discipline. And by the multitude of his foolishness, he shall be deceived. |
