1My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my insight,
1My son, pay attention to my wisdom, and to my understanding incline your ear,
2that you may maintain discretion
and your lips may preserve knowledge.
2to keep discretion, and that your lips may guard knowledge.
3Though the lips of the forbidden womana drip honey
and her speechb is smoother than oil,
3For the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey, and smoother than oil is her palate;
4in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a double-edged sword.
4but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp with mouths as a sword.
5Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead straight to Sheol.a
5Her feet go down to death; her steps lay hold of sheol.
6She does not consider the path of life;
she does not know that her ways are unstable.
6The path of life she does not weigh; her tracks are unstable; she does not know it.
7So now, my sons, listen to me,
and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
7And now, 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,
8Keep your path far away from her, and do not go near to the opening of her house,
9lest you concede your vigor to others,
and your years to one who is cruel;
9lest you give to others your splendor, and your years to a cruel one;
10lest strangers feast on your wealth,
and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.
10lest strangers be satisfied by your strength, and your labors be in the house of a foreigner;
11At the end of your life you will groan
when your flesh and your body are spent,
11and you groan at your end, in the consumption of your flesh and your body,
12and you will say, “How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!
12and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart spurned rebuke!
13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my mentors.
13And I have not listened to the voice of my instructors, and I have not inclined my ear to those teaching me.
14I am on the brink of utter ruin
in the midst of the whole assembly.”
14Am I as a little from all evil, in the midst of the assembly and the gathering.”
15Drink water from your own cistern,
and running water from your own well.
15Drink water from your own cistern and flowing from the midst of your own well.
16Why should your springs flow in the streets,
your streams of water in the public squares?
16Should your fountains be dispersed outside, channels of water in broad places?
17Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.
17Let them be for you, yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.
18May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
18Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth.
19A loving doe, a graceful fawn—
may her breasts satisfy you always;
may you be captivateda by her love forever.
19A loving doe and a graceful deer, let her breasts satisfy you at all times—may you wander in her love continually!
20Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress,
or embrace the bosom of a stranger?a
20So why do you wander, my son, with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?
21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and the LORD examinesa all his paths.
21For the ways of man are in front of the eyes of YHWH, and all his paths He weighs.
22The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him;
the cords of his sin entangle him.
22His own iniquities capture a wicked one, and he is held with the cords of his sin.
23He dies for lack of discipline,
led astray by his own great folly.
23He shall die for lack of discipline, and in the abundance of his folly he shall go astray.