¹⁰ When wisdom enters your heart,
And knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
¹¹ Discretion will preserve you;
^(E)Understanding will keep you,
¹² To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things,
¹³ From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To ^(F)walk in the ways of darkness;
^14 (G)Who rejoice in doing evil,
And delight in the perversity of the wicked;
^15 (H)Whose ways are crooked,
And who are devious in their paths;
¹⁶ To deliver you from ^(I)the immoral woman,
^(J)From the seductress who flatters with her words,
¹⁷ Who forsakes the companion of her youth,
And forgets the covenant of her God.
¹⁸ For ^(K)her house ^[a]leads down to death,
And her paths to the dead;
¹⁹ None who go to her return,
Nor do they ^[b]regain the paths of life—
²⁰ So you may walk in the way of goodness,
And keep to the paths of righteousness.

⁷ Therefore hear me now, my children,
And do not depart from the words of my mouth.
⁸ Remove your way far from her,
And do not go near the door of her house,
⁹ Lest you give your ^[e]honor to others,
And your years to the cruel one;
¹⁰ Lest aliens be filled with your ^[f]wealth,
And your labors go to the house of a foreigner;
¹¹ And you mourn at last,
When your flesh and your body are consumed,
¹² And say:
“How I have hated instruction,
And my heart despised correction!
¹³ I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers,
Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!
¹⁴ I was on the verge of total ruin,
In the midst of the assembly and congregation.”

¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern,
And running water from your own well.
¹⁶ Should your fountains be dispersed abroad,
^[g]Streams of water in the streets?
¹⁷ Let them be only your own,
And not for strangers with you.
¹⁸ Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice with ^(E)the wife of your youth.
^19 (F)As a loving deer and a graceful doe,
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
And always be ^[h]enraptured with her love.
²⁰ For why should you, my son, be enraptured by ^(G)an immoral woman,
And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?

^21 (H)For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord,
And He ^[i]ponders all his paths.
^22 (I)His own iniquities entrap the wicked man,
And he is caught in the cords of his sin.
^23 (J)He shall die for lack of instruction,
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

^14 (A)The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit;
^(B)He who is abhorred by the Lord will fall there.