1:
My son, attend to my wisdom, and incline thy ear to my prudence.
2:
That thou mayst keep thoughts, and thy lips may preserve instruction. Mind not the deceit of a woman.
3:
For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb dropping, and her throat is smoother than oil.
4:
But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword.
5:
Her feet go down into death, and her steps go in as far as hell.
6:
They walk not by the path of life, her steps are wandering, and unaccountable.
7:
Now therefore, my son, hear me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8:
Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the doors of her house.
9:
Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel.
10:
Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours be in another man's house,
11:
And thou mourn it the last, when thou shalt have spent thy flesh and thy body, and say:
12:
Why have I hated instruction, and my heart consented not to reproof,
13:
And have not heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not in- dined my ear to masters?
14:
I have almost been in all evil, in the midst of the church and of the congregation.
15:
Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well:
16:
Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters.
17:
Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee.
18:
Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth:
19:
Let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times; he thou delighted continually with her love.
20:
Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another ?
21:
The Lord beholdeth the ways of man, and considereth all his steps.
22:
His own iniquities catch the wicked, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his own sins.
23:
He shall die, because he hath not received instruction, and in the multitude of his folly he shall be deceived.