Proverbs 5

¹ My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,

² that you may keep discretion
and your lips may guard knowledge.

³ For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
and her speech 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 of Sheol.

⁶ She does not ponder the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.

⁷ And now, my sons, listen to me,
and do not turn from the words of my mouth.

⁸ Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house,

⁹ lest you give your vigor to others
and your years to a cruel one,

¹⁰ lest strangers feast on your strength
and your labors go to a foreigner's house,

¹¹ and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,

¹² and you say, "How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!

¹³ I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.

¹⁴ I was on the verge of utter ruin
in the midst of the assembled congregation."

¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.

¹⁶ Should your springs overflow into the streets,
streams of water in the public squares?

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

¹⁸ Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth—

¹⁹ a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
be intoxicated always by her love.

²⁰ Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

²¹ For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and he weighs all his paths.

²² The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him;
he is caught in the cords of his sin.

²³ He will die for lack of discipline,
and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.