Listen to wise teaching

5 My child, listen carefully to the wisdom that I teach you. I will teach you how to understand things well. ² If you learn this, you will choose to do the right things in life. Your words will show that you are wise.

³ Do not listen to the words of an adulteress. She promises something as sweet as honey and as beautiful as olive oil. ⁴ But in the end, she gives you bitter food, like poison. She gives you pain like a sharp sword.^[a]

⁵ She will lead you down to the place of death. You will follow her to your grave! ⁶ She does not think about the way that leads to true life. She has lost the right road but she does not understand what she is doing.

⁷ So listen to me, my children. Never forget what I am telling you.

⁸ Keep far away from a woman like that! Do not even go near the door of her house. ⁹ If you go with her, you will lose your honour. A cruel person will rob you of the best years of your life. ¹⁰ Strangers will take all your money. The good things that you have worked for will belong to someone else.

¹¹ At the end of your life, you will weep with pain. Your body will be sick and weak. ¹² You will say, ‘I should have listened when people warned me that I was doing bad things. ¹³ I did not listen to my teachers. I refused to obey them.

¹⁴ Now I will be completely ashamed when I meet together with all the people.’

Be faithful to your wife

¹⁵ You should enjoy your own wife, as you enjoy clean water to drink.

¹⁶ You would not pour your good water onto the streets. So do not waste your love on other women. ¹⁷ Keep it for you and your wife. Do not share it with other women.

¹⁸ Enjoy sex with your own wife. May the wife that you married when you were young continue to give you joy. ¹⁹ May she be as pretty and beautiful as a young deer. May her breasts always make you happy. May she love you in a way that gives you joy.

²⁰ So my son, do not let an adulteress deceive you. Do not enjoy the body of another man's wife.

²¹ The Lord sees everything that a person does. He knows every path that you go along.

²² The sins of a wicked person will be the trap that catches him. They will hold him like strong ropes. ²³ He cannot control his sins, so he will die. He will become lost, because he does such stupid things.