Proverbs 5 / 31
- 1
(Warning Against Adultery)
My son, be attentive to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
- 2
that you may keep discretion,
and your lips may guard knowledge.
- 3
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
and her speechHebrew palate is smoother than oil,
- 4
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
- 5
Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to Sheol;
- 6
she does not ponder the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.
- 7
And now, O sons, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
- 8
Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house,
- 9
lest you give your honor to others
and your years to the merciless,
- 10
lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
- 11
and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
- 12
and you say, "How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!
- 13
I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
- 14
I am at the brink of utter ruin
in the assembled congregation."
- 15
Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
- 16
Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
- 17
Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
- 18
Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
- 19
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.
- 20
Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
- 21
For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
and he ponders all his paths.
- 22
The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
- 23
He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray.