Warnings Against Adultery

20 (A)My son, keep your father's commandment,
    (B)and forsake not your mother's teaching.
21 (C)Bind them on your heart always;
    (D)tie them around your neck.
22 (E)When you walk, they[a] will lead you;
    (F)when you lie down, they will (G)watch over you;
    and when you awake, they will talk with you.
23 For the commandment is (H)a lamp and the teaching a light,
    and the (I)reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
24 to preserve you from the evil woman,[b]
    from the smooth tongue of (J)the adulteress.[c]
25 (K)Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
    and do not let her capture you with her (L)eyelashes;
26 for (M)the price of a prostitute is only (N)a loaf of bread,[d]
    but a married woman[e] (O)hunts down a precious life.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 6:22 Hebrew it; three times in this verse
  2. Proverbs 6:24 Revocalization (compare Septuagint) yields from the wife of a neighbor
  3. Proverbs 6:24 Hebrew the foreign woman
  4. Proverbs 6:26 Or (compare Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate) for a prostitute leaves a man with nothing but a loaf of bread
  5. Proverbs 6:26 Hebrew a man's wife

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