Proverbs 5

Tree of Life Version

Incline your ear to my insight,
² that you may maintain discretion
and your lips may preserve knowledge.
³ For a seducing woman’s lips drip honey
and her mouth is smoother than oil.
⁴ But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a double-edged sword.
⁵ Her feet go down to death,
her steps lead straight to Sheol.
⁶ She does not keep straight to the path of life,
her paths are crooked
—but she does not know it.
⁷ So now, my sons, listen to me
and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
⁸ Keep your path far from her
and do not go near the door of her house—
⁹ lest you give your strength to others
    and your years to one who is cruel;
¹⁰ lest strangers feast on your strength,
    your labors go to a foreigner’s house.
¹¹ At the end of your life, you will groan,
when your flesh and body are spent—
¹² and you will say, “How I hated discipline!
How my heart spurned reproof!
¹³ I would not listen to my teacher’s voice
or incline my ear to my instructors.
¹⁴ I was almost in utter ruin amid
the community and congregation.”
¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern
and running water from your own well.
¹⁶ Should your springs flow in the streets,
your streams of water in public squares?
¹⁷ Let them be yours alone
and not shared with strangers.
¹⁸ May your fountain be blessed
and may you delight in the wife of your youth.
¹⁹ A lovely hind, a graceful doe—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you always be captivated by her love.
²⁰ Why, my son, be captivated by a seducing woman?
Why embrace a foreigner’s bosom?

²¹ For a man’s ways are before the eyes of Adonai,
and He observes all his paths.
²² The iniquities of a wicked man will ensnare him.
The cords of his sin will hold him down.
²³ He will die for lack of discipline,
led astray by his own great folly.