⁷ Now, O children, listen to me;
    do not depart from the sayings of my mouth.
⁸ Keep your paths far from her,
    and do not go near to the door of her house,
⁹ lest you give your honor to the others,
    and your years to the merciless,
¹⁰ lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
    and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
¹¹ and you groan at your end,
    when your flesh and body are consumed,
¹² and say “How I hated discipline,
    and I despised reproof!”
¹³ and “I did not listen to the voice of my teachers,
    and I did not incline my ear to my instructors!
¹⁴ I was almost at utter^[d] ruin^[e]
    in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern
    and flowing waters from inside your own well.
¹⁶ Shall your springs be scattered outward?
    In the streets, shall there be streams of water?
¹⁷ May they be yours alone,
    and not for strangers who are with you.
¹⁸ May your fountain be blessed,
    and rejoice in the wife^[f] of your youth.
¹⁹ She is a deer of love and a doe of grace;
    may her breasts satisfy you always;^[g]
    by her love may you be intoxicated continually.
²⁰ Why should you be intoxicated, my child, by a strange woman,
    and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
²¹ For before the eyes of Yahweh are human ways,^[h]
    and all his paths he examines.
²² His iniquities shall ensnare him, the evildoer,
    and in the vanity of his sin he shall be caught.
²³ He shall die for lack of^[i] discipline,
    and in the greatness of his folly he shall be lost.

²⁰ My child, keep the commandment of your father,
    and do not disregard the instruction of your mother.
²¹ Bind them on your heart continually;
    tie them upon your neck.
²² When you walk,^[a] she^[b] will lead you,
    When you lie down,^[c] she will watch over you,
    and when you awake, she will converse with you.
²³ For like a lamp is a commandment, and instruction is light,
    and the way of life^[d] is the reproof of discipline,
²⁴ in order to preserve you from an evil woman,^[e]
    from the smoothness of the tongue of an adulteress.^[f]
25 Do not desire her beauty in your heart;
    may she not capture you with her eyelashes.
²⁶ For the price of a woman, a prostitute,^[g] is the price of a loaf of bread,
    but the woman belonging to a man^[h] hunts precious life.

²⁷ Can a man carry fire in his lap,
    and his clothes not burn?
²⁸ If a man walks upon the hot coals,
    will his feet not be burned?
²⁹ Thus, he who goes to the wife of his neighbor,
    any who touches her shall not go unpunished.
³⁰ People do not despise a thief when he steals
    to fill himself^[i] when he is hungry.
³¹ But if he is found, he will pay sevenfold,
    every possession of his house he shall give.
³² He who commits adultery with a woman lacks sense,^[j]
    he destroys himself^[k] who does it.
³³ A wound and dishonor he will find,
    and his disgrace will not be wiped out.
³⁴ For jealousy is the fury of a husband,
    and he will not show restraint on the day of revenge.
³⁵ He will not accept any compensation,^[l]
    and he will not be willing, though the bribe is large.

7 My child, guard my sayings;
    store my commandments with you.
² Keep my commands and live,
    and my teaching like the apple of your eye.^[a]
3 Bind them on your fingers;
    write them on the tablet of your heart.
⁴ Say to wisdom,^[b] “you are my sister,”
    and you shall call insight,^[c] “intimate friend.”^[d]
5 In order to guard yourself from an adulteress,^[e]
    from the foreigner who makes her words smooth.^[f]
6 For at the window of my house,
    through my lattice, I looked down.
⁷ And I saw among the simple,
    I observed among the youth,
    a young man lacking sense,^[g]
8 passing on the street at^[h] her corner,
    and he takes the road to her house,
⁹ at twilight, at the day’s evening,
    in the midst of night and the darkness.
¹⁰ Then behold! A woman comes to meet him
    with the garment of a prostitute^[i] and a secret heart.^[j]
11 She is loud and stubborn;
    her feet do not stay at her house.
¹² Now in the street, now in the square,
    at^[k] every corner she lies in wait.
¹³ She took hold of ^[l] him and kissed him.
    Her face was impudent, and she said to him,
¹⁴ “Sacrifices of peace offerings are upon me;
    today^[m] I completed my vows.
¹⁵ So^[n] I have come out to meet you,
    to seek your face, and I have found you.
¹⁶ With coverings I have adorned my couch,
    spreads of the linen of Egypt;
¹⁷ I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
    aloes, and cinnamon.
¹⁸ Come, let us take our fill of love making,
    until the morning let us delight in love.
¹⁹ For there is no man^[o] in his home;
    he has gone on a long journey.^[p]
20 The bag of money he took in his hand,
    for on the day of the full moon he will come home.”
²¹ She persuades him with the greatness of her teachings;
    with her smooth lips she compels him.
²² He goes after her suddenly;
    like an ox to the slaughter he goes,
    and like a stag to the instruction of a fool,
²³ until an arrow pierces his entrails,^[q]
    like a bird rushing into a snare,
    but he does not know that it will cost him his life.^[r]

²⁴ And now, my children, listen to me,
    and be attentive to the sayings of my mouth.
²⁵ May your heart not turn aside to her ways;
    do not stray into her path.
²⁶ For many slain she has laid low,
    and countless^[s] are all of her killings.
²⁷ The ways of Sheol^[t] are her house,
    descending to chambers of death.

¹⁴ A deep pit is the mouth of an adulteress,^[a]
    he with whom Yahweh is angry will fall there.