| 1 | My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. |
| 2 | Keep my commandments, and live; and my teaching, as the apple of thine eye. |
| 3 | Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the tablet of thy heart. |
| 4 | Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call intelligence [thy] kinswoman: |
| 5 | that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger who flattereth with her words. |
| 6 | For at the window of my house, I looked forth through my lattice, |
| 7 | and I beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the sons, a young man void of understanding, |
| 8 | passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, |
| 9 | in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness. |
| 10 | And behold, there met him a woman in the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart. |
| 11 | She is clamorous and unmanageable; her feet abide not in her house: |
| 12 | now without, now in the broadways, -- and she lieth in wait at every corner. |
| 13 | And she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, |
| 14 | I have peace-offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows: |
| 15 | therefore came I forth to meet thee, to seek earnestly thy face, and I have found thee. |
| 16 | I have decked my bed with tapestry coverlets of variegated linen from Egypt; |
| 17 | I have perfumed my couch with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. |
| 18 | Come, let us revel in love until the morning, let us delight ourselves with loves. |
| 19 | For the husband is not at home, he is gone a long journey; |
| 20 | he hath taken the money-bag with him, he will come home on the day of the full moon. |
| 21 | With her much enticement she beguiled him; with the smoothness of her lips she constrained him. |
| 22 | He went after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, and as stocks [serve] for the correction of the fool; |
| 23 | till an arrow strike through his liver: as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for its life. |
| 24 | And now, ye sons, hearken unto me, and attend to the words of my mouth. |
| 25 | Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths: |
| 26 | for she hath cast down many wounded, and all slain by her were strong. |
| 27 | Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death. |
