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listen closely to my understanding;
2 that you may maintain discretion,
and your lips may guard knowledge.
3 For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
4 but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood,
and as sharp as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead straight down to Sheol.
6 She does not consider the path of life;
her ways are crooked, yet she does not know it.
7 Now then, my sons, listen to me;
do not turn aside 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 honour to others,
and your years to one who is cruel;
10 lest strangers feast on your wealth,
and your earnings enrich the house of a foreigner.
11 At the end of your life you will groan,
when your flesh and body are spent.
12 You will say, “How I hated discipline!
How my heart despised correction!
13 I would not obey my teachers,
or listen to those who instructed me.
14 Now I have come to the edge of utter ruin
in the midst of the whole assembly.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your springs flow into the streets,
streams of water in the public squares?
17 Let them be yours alone,
and not for sharing with strangers.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 A loving doe, a graceful fawn—
may her breasts always satisfy you;
may you be always captivated with her love.
20 Why should you, my son, be captivated by a forbidden woman
or embrace the breast of another man’s wife?
21 For the ways of a man are on full display
before the eyes of the Lord,
and He examines all his paths.
22 The wicked man is entrapped by his own iniquities,
and he is entangled by the cords of his own sins.
23 He will die for lack of discipline,
led astray by the totality of his own stupidity.