| 1 | My son, attend to my wisdom, and incline thy ear to my prudence. |
| 2 | That thou mayst keep thoughts, and thy lips may preserve instruction. Mind not the deceit of a woman. |
| 3 | For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb dropping, and her throat is smoother than oil. |
| 4 | But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword. |
| 5 | Her feet go down into death, and her steps go in as far as hell. |
| 6 | They walk not by the path of life, her steps are wandering, and unaccountable. |
| 7 | Now therefore, my son, hear me, and depart not from the words of my mouth. |
| 8 | Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the doors of her house. |
| 9 | Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel. |
| 10 | Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours be in another man's house, |
| 11 | And thou mourn it the last, when thou shalt have spent thy flesh and thy body, and say: |
| 12 | Why have I hated instruction, and my heart consented not to reproof, |
| 13 | And have not heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not inclined my ear to masters? |
| 14 | I have almost been in all evil, in the midst of the church and of the congregation. |
| 15 | Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well: |
| 16 | Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters. |
| 17 | Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee. |
| 18 | Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth: |
| 19 | Let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times; he thou delighted continually with her love. |
| 20 | Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another? |
| 21 | The Lord beholdeth the ways of man, and considereth all his steps. |
| 22 | His own iniquities catch the wicked, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his own sins. |
| 23 | He shall die, because he hath not received instruction, and in the multitude of his folly he shall be deceived. |
