Chapter 5

5:1

My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:

5:2

That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

5:3

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

5:4

But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

5:5

Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

5:6

Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

5:7

Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

5:8

Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

5:9

Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

5:10

Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

5:11

And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

5:12

And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

5:13

And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

5:14

I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

5:15

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

5:16

Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

5:17

Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

5:18

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

5:19

Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

5:20

And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

5:21

For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

5:22

His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

5:23

He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.