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v1
My child, be attentive to my wisdom, and to my understanding incline your ear;
v2
in order to keep prudence, and knowledge will guard your lips.
v3
For the lips of the strange woman will drip honey, and smoother than oil is her mouth. ^[Or “palate”]
v4
But her end is bitter as the wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
v5
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of Sheol. ^[A term for the place where the dead reside, i.e., the Underworld]
v6
She does not observe ^[Or “examine, weigh”] the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.
v7
Now, O children, listen to me; do not depart from the sayings of my mouth.
v8
Keep your paths far from her, and do not go near to the door of her house,
v9
lest you give your honor to the others, and your years to the merciless,
v10
lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
v11
and you groan at your end, when your flesh and body are consumed,
v12
and say “How I hated discipline, and I despised reproof!“
v13
and “I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, and I did not incline my ear to my instructors!
v14
I was almost at utter ^[Or “all, every, whole”] ruin ^[Or “evil”] in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
v15
Drink water from your own cistern and flowing waters from inside your own well.
v16
Shall your springs be scattered outward? In the streets, shall there be streams of water?
v17
May they be yours alone, and not for strangers who are with you.
v18
May your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife ^[Or “woman”] of your youth.
v19
She is a deer of love and a doe of grace; may her breasts satisfy you always; ^[Literally “at all time”] by her love may you be intoxicated continually.
v20
Why should you be intoxicated, my child, by a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
v21
For before the eyes of Yahweh are human ways, ^[Literally “the ways of man/humankind”] and all his paths he examines.
v22
His iniquities shall ensnare him, the evildoer, and in the vanity of his sin he shall be caught.
v23
He shall die for lack of ^[Literally “with there is no”] discipline, and in the greatness of his folly he shall be lost.