Proverbs, 5

1. My son, pay attention to my wisdom, listen carefully to what I know;

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

2. so that you may preserve discretion and your lips may guard knowledge. Take no notice of a loose-living woman,

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

3. for the lips of the adulteress drip with honey, her palate is more unctuous than oil,

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

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

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

5. Her feet go down to death, Sheol the goal of her steps;

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

6. far from following the path of life, her course is uncertain and she does not know it.

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

7. And now, son, listen to me, never deviate from what I say:

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

8. set your course as far from her as possible, go nowhere near the door of her house,

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

9. or she will hand over your honour to others, the years of your life to a man without pity,

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

10. and strangers will batten on your property, and your produce go to the house of a stranger,

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

11. and, at your ending, your body and flesh having been consumed, you will groan

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

12. and exclaim, 'Alas, I hated discipline, my heart spurned all correction;

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

13. I would not attend to the voice of my masters, I would not listen to those who tried to teach me.

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

14. Now I have come to nearly every kind of misery, in the assembly and in the community.'

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

15. Drink the water from your own storage-well, fresh water from your own spring.

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

16. Even if your fountains overflow outside, your streams of water in the public squares:

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

17. let them be for you alone, and not for strangers with you.

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

18. May your fountain-head be blessed! Find joy with the wife you married in your youth,

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

19. fair as a hind, graceful as a fawn: hers the breasts that ever fill you with delight, hers the love that ever holds you captive.

19. [Let 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.

20. Why be seduced, my son, by someone else's wife, and fondle the breast of a woman who belongs to another?

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

21. For the eyes of Yahweh observe human ways, and survey all human paths.

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

22. The wicked is snared in his own misdeeds, is caught in the meshes of his own sin.

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

23. For want of discipline, he dies, led astray by his own excessive folly.

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