15 Drink (A)water from your own cistern,
    flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your (B)springs be scattered abroad,
    streams of water (C)in the streets?
17 (D)Let them be for yourself alone,
    and not for strangers with you.
18 Let your (E)fountain be blessed,
    and (F)rejoice in (G)the wife of your youth,
19     a lovely (H)deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts (I)fill you at all times with delight;
    be intoxicated[a] always in her love.
20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with (J)a forbidden woman
    and embrace the bosom of (K)an adulteress?[b]

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 5:19 Hebrew be led astray; also verse 20
  2. Proverbs 5:20 Hebrew a foreign woman

15 Drink water from your own cistern,
    running water from your own well.
16 Should your springs overflow in the streets,
    your streams of water in the public squares?
17 Let them be yours alone,
    never to be shared with strangers.
18 May your fountain(A) be blessed,
    and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.(B)
19 A loving doe, a graceful deer(C)
    may her breasts satisfy you always,
    may you ever be intoxicated with her love.
20 Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife?
    Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?

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