7 My son, keep my words.
    Lay up my commandments within you.
² Keep my commandments and live!
    Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.
³ Bind them on your fingers.
    Write them on the tablet of your heart.
⁴ Tell wisdom, “You are my sister.”
    Call understanding your relative,
⁵ that they may keep you from the strange woman,
    from the foreigner who flatters with her words.
⁶ For at the window of my house,
    I looked out through my lattice.
⁷ I saw among the simple ones.
    I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding,
⁸ passing through the street near her corner,
    he went the way to her house,
⁹ in the twilight, in the evening of the day,
    in the middle of the night and in the darkness.
¹⁰ Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute,
    and with crafty intent.
¹¹ She is loud and defiant.
    Her feet don’t stay in her house.
¹² Now she is in the streets, now in the squares,
    and lurking at every corner.
¹³ So she caught him, and kissed him.
    With an impudent face she said to him:
¹⁴ “Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me.
    Today I have paid my vows.
¹⁵ Therefore I came out to meet you,
    to diligently seek your face,
    and I have found you.
¹⁶ I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry,
    with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.
¹⁷ I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
¹⁸ Come, let’s take our fill of loving until the morning.
    Let’s solace ourselves with loving.
¹⁹ For my husband isn’t at home.
    He has gone on a long journey.
²⁰ He has taken a bag of money with him.
    He will come home at the full moon.”
²¹ With persuasive words, she led him astray.
    With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him.
²² He followed her immediately,
    as an ox goes to the slaughter,
    as a fool stepping into a noose.
²³ Until an arrow strikes through his liver,
    as a bird hurries to the snare,
    and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.

²⁴ Now therefore, sons, listen to me.
    Pay attention to the words of my mouth.
²⁵ Don’t let your heart turn to her ways.
    Don’t go astray in her paths,
²⁶ for she has thrown down many wounded.
    Yes, all her slain are a mighty army.
²⁷ Her house is the way to Sheol,^[a]
    going down to the rooms of death.