1 My son, attend to my wisdom; Incline your ear to my understanding:

2 That you may preserve discretion, And that your lips may keep knowledge.

3 For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil:

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

5 Her feet go down to death; Her steps take hold on Sheol;

6 If she does not find the level path of life: Her ways are unstable, [and] she will not know.

7 Now therefore, [my] sons, listen to me, And do not depart from the words of my mouth.

8 Remove your way far from her, And don't come near the door of her house;

9 Or else you will give your honor to others, And your years to the cruel;

10 Or else strangers will be filled with your strength, And your labors [be] in the house of an alien,

11 And you mourn at your latter end, When your flesh and your body are consumed,

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

13 Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!

14 I was well-near in all evil In the midst of the assembly and congregation.

15 Drink waters out of your own cistern, And running waters out of your own well.

16 Should your springs be dispersed abroad, And streams of water in the streets?

17 Let them be for yourself alone, And not for strangers with you.

18 Let your fountain be blessed; And rejoice in the wife of your youth.

19 [As] a loving hind and a pleasant doe, Let her nipples immerse you at all times; And be ravished always with her love.

20 For why should you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?

21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of Yahweh; And he makes level all his paths.

22 His own iniquities will take the wicked, And he will be held with the cords of his sin.

23 He will die for lack of instruction; And in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.