|
[1] My son, hearken unto my wisdom, and incline thine ear unto my knowledge.
[2] That thou mayest regard counsel, and thy lips observe knowledge.
[3] For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is more soft than oil.
[4] But the end of her is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two edged sword.
[5] Her feet go down to death, and her steps take hold on hell.
[6] She weigheth not the way of life: her paths are moveable: thou canst not know them.
[7] Hear ye me now therefore, O children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
[8] Keep thy way far from her, and come not near the door of her house,
[9] Lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years to the cruel:
[10] Lest the stranger should be filled with thy strength, and thy labors be in the house of a stranger,
[11] And thou mourn at thine end, (when thou hast consumed thy flesh and thy body)
[12] And say, How have I hated instruction, and mine heart despised correction!
[13] And have not obeyed the voice of them that taught me, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
[14] I was almost brought into all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
[15] Drink the water of thy cistern, and of the rivers out of the midst of thine own well.
[16] Let thy fountains flow forth, and the rivers of waters in the streets.
[17] But let them be thine, even thine only, and not the strangers with thee.
[18] Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
[19] Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe: let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and delight in her love continually.
[20] For why shouldest thou delight, my son, in a strange woman, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
[21] For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his paths.
[22] His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall beholden with the cords of his own sin.
[23] He shall die for fault of instruction, and shall go astray through his great folly.
|