Page 5 of 31
My son, attend unto my wisdom, [and] bow thine ear to my understanding:
(5:1)
That thou mayest regard discretion, and [that] thy lips may keep knowledge
(5:2)
For the lips of a strange woman drop [as] an honeycomb, and her mouth [is] smoother than oil:
(5:3)
But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword
(5:4)
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell
(5:5)
Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, [that] thou canst not know [them]
(5:6)
Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth
(5:7)
Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
(5:8)
Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
(5:9)
Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours [be] in the house of a stranger;
(5:10)
And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
(5:11)
And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
(5:12)
And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
(5:13)
I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly
(5:14)
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well
(5:15)
Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, [and] rivers of waters in the streets
(5:16)
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee
(5:17)
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth
(5:18)
[Let her be as] the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love
(5:19)
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
(5:20)
For the ways of man [are] before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings
(5:21)
His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins
(5:22)
He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray
(5:23)
Get Next Chapter