Proverbs 5:7-23

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁷ And now, my child,^[a] listen to me,
    and do not depart from the words of my mouth.^(A)
8 Keep your way far from her,
    and do not go near the door of her house,^(B)
9 lest you give your honor to others
    and your years to the merciless,
¹⁰ and strangers take their fill of your wealth,
    and your labors go to the house of an alien,
¹¹ and at the end of your life you groan,
    when your flesh and body are consumed,
¹² and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,
    and my heart despised reproof!^(C)
13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
    or incline my ear to my instructors.
¹⁴ Now I am at the point of utter ruin
    in the public assembly.”

¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern,
    flowing water from your own well.
¹⁶ Should your springs be scattered abroad,
    streams of water in the streets?^(D)
17 Let them be for yourself alone
    and not for sharing with strangers.
¹⁸ Let your fountain be blessed,
    and rejoice in the wife of your youth,^(E)
19     a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
May her breasts satisfy you at all times;
    may you be intoxicated always by her love.^(F)
20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman
    and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?^[b](G)
21 For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord,
    and he examines all their paths.^(H)
22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them,
    and they are caught in the coils of their sin.^(I)
23 They die for lack of discipline,
    and because of their great folly they are lost.^(J)