¹ My son, keep my words
    and make my commands your treasure.
² Follow my precepts, and you will live;
    keep my teachings as the apple of your eye.
³ Bind them to your fingers;
    inscribe them on the tablet of your heart.
⁴ Say to wisdom,^[a] “You are my sister,”
    and regard understanding as your friend,
⁵ so that they may keep you from another’s wife,
    from the adulteress with her seductive words.
⁶ While standing at the window of my house
    I looked out through my lattice,
⁷ and as I glanced at the immature youths,
    I observed among the simple ones^[b]
    a lad with no sense.
⁸ He walked along the street near her corner
    and then turned in the direction near her house,
⁹ at twilight, as the day was fading,
    at dusk when the night grows dark.
¹⁰ Then a woman came forth to meet him,
    dressed like a prostitute with a scheming heart.
¹¹ She was loud-mouthed and brazen,
    one who is never content to rest at home,
¹² always on the streets or the public squares,
    lying in wait at every corner.
¹³ She caught him and kissed him,
    and brazenly said to him:
¹⁴ “I had to make sacrificial peace offerings,^[c]
    and I have fulfilled my vows today.
¹⁵ And so I came out to meet you,
    to look for you, and now I have found you.
¹⁶ I have spread coverlets over my bed,
    covered sheets of Egyptian linen.^[d]
17 “I have perfumed my bed
    with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
¹⁸ Come, let us take our fill of love till morning,
    abandoning ourselves to a feast of love.
¹⁹ For my husband is not at home;
    he is away on a long journey.
²⁰ He took a bag of money with him
    and will not be back until the moon is full.”
²¹ With her persistent urging she persuaded him,
    luring him astray with her seductive words.^[e]
22 Bemused, he followed her,
    like an ox being led to the slaughter,
like a stag stepping into a noose,
²³     until an arrow pierces its liver,
like a bird rushing into a snare,
    not realizing its life is at stake.
²⁴ So now, my son, listen to me
    and be attentive to what I have to say.
²⁵ Do not let your heart stray into her ways
    or wander into her paths.
²⁶ For many are those she has led to death;
    her victims are beyond number.
²⁷ Her house is the pathway to the netherworld,^[f]
    the descent to the chambers of death.