1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom;

listen closely  * 5:1 Lit wisdom; stretch out your ear to my understanding  * 5:1 Pr 4:20; 22:17

2 so that you may maintain discretion

and your lips safeguard knowledge.  * 5:2 Mal 2:7

3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey

and her words are  * 5:3 Lit her palate is smoother than oil,

4 in the end she’s as bitter as wormwood  * 5:4 Pr 5:8–11; 6:32–33; Ec 7:26

and as sharp as a double-edged sword.  * 5:4 Ps 55:21; 57:4

5 Her feet go down to death;

her steps head straight for Sheol.  * 5:5 Pr 7:27; 9:18

6 She doesn’t consider the path of life;

she doesn’t know that her ways are unstable.

7 So now, sons, listen to me,

and don’t turn away from the words from my mouth.  * 5:7 Pr 7:24

8 Keep your way far from her.

Don’t go near the door of her house.  * 5:8 Pr 2:18; 7:8; 9:14

9 Otherwise, you will give up your vitality to others

and your years to someone cruel;

10 strangers will drain your resources,

and your hard-earned pay will end up in a foreigner’s house.

11 At the end of your life, you will lament

when your physical body has been consumed,

12 and you will say, "How I hated discipline,

and how my heart despised correction.  * 5:12 Ps 107:11; Pr 1:7,28–31; 12:1; 13:18

13 I didn’t obey my teachers

or listen closely  * 5:13 Lit or turn my ear to my instructors.

14 I am on the verge of complete ruin

before the entire community."

15 Drink water from your own cistern,

water flowing from your own well.  * 5:15 Sg 4:12,15

16 Should your springs flow in the streets,

streams in the public squares?  * 5:16 Pr 7:12

17 They should be for you alone

and not for you to share with strangers.

18 Let your fountain be blessed,

and take pleasure in the wife of your youth.  * 5:18 Ec 9:9; Mal 2:14

19 A loving deer, a graceful doe  * 5:19 Or graceful mountain goat  —

let her breasts always satisfy you;  * 5:19 Sg 4:5

be lost in her love forever.

20 Why, my son, would you lose yourself

with a forbidden woman

or embrace a wayward woman?  * 5:20 Pr 2:16

21 For a man’s ways are before the  Lord’s eyes,  * 5:21 Jb 14:16; Ps 119:168; Hs 7:2; Heb 4:13

and he considers all his paths.  * 5:21 Pr 4:25–26

22 A wicked man’s iniquities will trap him;  * 5:22 Nm 32:23; Ps 7:15–16

he will become tangled in the ropes of his own sin.  * 5:22 Pr 11:6

23 He will die because there is no discipline,  * 5:23 Jb 4:21

and be lost because of his great stupidity.