1My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:

2That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

3¶ For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: ²⁵

4But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.

5Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

6Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

7Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

8Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

9Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

10Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; ²⁶

11And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

12And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

13And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

14I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

15¶ Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

16Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

17Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.

18Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

19Let 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. ²⁷²⁸

20And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

21For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

22¶ His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. ²⁹

23He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.