Avoiding Immorality

1My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,

2that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.

3Though the lips of the forbidden woman ¹⁵drip honey and her speech ¹⁶is smoother than oil,

4in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.

5Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to Sheol. ¹⁷

6She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.

7So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.

8Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house,

9lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;

10lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.

11At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,

12and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!

13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.

14I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”

15Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.

16Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?

17Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.

18May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:

19A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always;
may you be captivated ¹⁸by her love forever.

20Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger? ¹⁹

21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines ²⁰all his paths.

22The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.

23He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.