²⁰ My son, keep your father’s mitzvah,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching.
²¹ Bind them on your heart continually—
tie them around your neck.
²² When you walk, they will guide you.
When you lie down, they will watch over you,
and when you wake up, they will speak to you.
²³ For the mitzvah is a lamp, Torah a light,
and corrective discipline the way of life,
²⁴ keeping you from the immoral woman,
from a wayward wife’s smooth tongue.
²⁵ Do not lust in your heart after her beauty
or let her captivate you with her eyelids.
²⁶ For on account of a prostitute one is reduced to a loaf of bread;
a man’s wife preys on your precious life.
²⁷ Can a man scoop fire into his lap
without burning his clothes?
²⁸ Or can a man walk upon hot coals
without scorching his feet?
²⁹ So is he who goes to another man’s wife.
No one who touches her will go unpunished.
³⁰ Men do not despise a thief if he steals
to satisfy himself when he is starving.
³¹ Yet if he is caught, he must repay sevenfold,
giving up all the wealth of his house.
³² He who commits adultery with a woman lacks sense.
Whoever does so destroys himself.
³³ He will find disease and disgrace.
His shame will never be wiped away.
³⁴ For jealousy enrages a man
and he will show no mercy in the day of revenge.
³⁵ He will not accept any compensation,
he will not consent,
even if your bribe is great.