Warning Against Adultery

1My son, be attentive to my wisdom;

incline your ear to my understanding,

2that you may keep discretion,

and your lips may guard knowledge.

3For the lips of a forbidden5:3 Hebrew strange; also verse 20 woman drip honey,

and her speech5:3 Hebrew palate is smoother than oil,

4but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword.

5Her feet go down to death;

her steps follow the path to5:5 Hebrew lay hold of Sheol;

6she does not ponder the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.

7And now, O sons, listen to me,

and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

8Keep your way far from her,

and do not go near the door of her house,

9lest you give your honour to others

and your years to the merciless,

10lest strangers take their fill of your strength,

and your labours go to the house of a foreigner,

11and at the end of your life you groan,

when your flesh and body are consumed,

12and you say, “How I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof!

13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my instructors.

14I am at the brink of utter ruin

in the assembled congregation.”

15Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well.

16Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets?

17Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers with you.

18Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

19a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;

be intoxicated5:19 Hebrew be led astray; also verse 20 always in her love.

20Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?5:20 Hebrew a foreign woman

21For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD,

and he ponders5:21 Or makes level all his paths.

22The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,

and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

23He dies for lack of discipline,

and because of his great folly he is led astray.