⁷ Hear me now therefore, O 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 honor to others,
    and your years to the cruel;
¹⁰ lest strangers be filled with your wealth,
    and your labors go to the house of a stranger;
¹¹ and you mourn at the last,
    when your flesh and your body are consumed,
¹² and say, “How I have hated instruction,
    and my heart despised reproof!
¹³ And I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers,
    nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!
¹⁴ I was almost in utter ruin
    in the midst of the congregation and assembly.”

¹⁵ Drink waters out of your own cistern,
    and running waters out of your own well.
¹⁶ Should your fountains be dispersed abroad,
    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 the wife of your youth.
¹⁹ Let her be as the loving deer and pleasant doe;
    let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
    and always be enraptured with her love.
²⁰ Why should you, my son, be intoxicated by an immoral woman,
    and embrace the bosom of a seductress?

²¹ For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord,
    and He ponders all his goings.
²² His own iniquities entrap the wicked himself,
    and he is snared in the cords of his sins.
²³ He will die for lack of instruction,
    and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.