A warning about adultery

1My son, listen carefully to some more wise things that I will tell you. Listen well to what I am going to teach you.

2If you do that, you will be able to choose wisely what to do, and you will know the right things to say [MTY].

3What an immoral woman says to you may be as sweet as honey, and sound smoother than olive oil feels on your skin,

4but the result of being with her will be bitter like gall and injure you as badly, like being cut with a sharp two-edged sword.

5If you go where she goes [MTY], you will go down to where the dead people are. Her steps will lead you straight to the grave.

6She is not concerned about the roads that lead to a long life.
She walks down a crooked path, and she does not realize that she is on the wrong road.

7So now, my sons, listen to me.
◄Never turn aside from/always remember► [LIT] what I am about to tell you.

8Run away from immoral women! Do not go near the doors of their houses!

9If you enter the home of one of them, you will lose your ◄self-respect/good reputation► and that woman’s husband will not act mercifully toward you; he will kill you and take everything that you have acquired during your life!

10Foreigners will take your money, and all the good things that you have worked for will ◄end up in their hands/become their possessions►.

11And when you are about to die,
you will groan with severe pain because diseases that you have gotten from being immoral will be destroying your body.

12Then you will say, “I hated it when people tried to correct me. I despised people when they reproved/rebuked me.

13I did not heed what my teachers said! I paid no attention to those who tried to teach me something about my behavior.

14Now I am almost ruined, and I will be disgraced in public gatherings.”

15Like a man is refreshed by drinking water from his own well [MET], enjoy having sex [EUP] only with your own wife.

16Like you would not waste good water by pouring it into the street, you should not have sex with other women. [MET, EUP]

17Enjoy having sex only with your wife; do not have sex with other women.

18Let your wife be a source of great pleasure to you.
◄Be happy/Enjoy sex► with the woman whom you married when you were both young.

19She is as pretty and graceful as a young female deer. Allow her breasts to always satisfy you.
Allow her lovemaking to excite you.

20My son, do not be [RHQ] captivated/charmed by an immoral woman! Do not fondle the breasts of another man’s wife!

21I say that because Yahweh sees clearly everything that we do; he knows where we are going on the roads that we walk on.

22Evil men’s sinful desires hold them fast; their sins are like ropes that bind them.

23Evil men will die because they are unable to say “No” to their desires; they will ◄go astray/be lost► because of the foolish things that they do.