¹ My son, attend to my wisdom, and incline thy ear to my prudence,

² That thou mayst keep thoughts, and thy lips may preserve instruction. Mind not the deceit of a woman.

³ For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb dropping, and her throat is smoother than oil.

⁴ But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵ Her feet go down into death, and her steps go in as far as hell.

⁶ They walk not by the path of life, her steps are wandering, and unaccountable.

⁷ Now, therefore, my son, hear me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

⁸ Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the doors of her house.

⁹ Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel.

¹⁰ Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours be in another man's house,

¹¹ And thou mourn at the last, when thou shalt have spent thy flesh and thy body, and say;

¹² Why have I hated instruction, and my heart consented not to reproof,

¹³ And have not heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not inclined my ear to masters?

¹⁴ I have almost been in all evil, in the midst of the church and of the congregation.

¹⁵ Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well:

¹⁶ Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters.

¹⁷ Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee.

¹⁸ Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth:

¹⁹ Let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times: be thou delighted continually with her love.

²⁰ Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another?

²¹ The Lord beholdeth the ways of man, and considereth all his steps.

²² His own iniquities catch the wicked, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his own sins.

²³ He shall die, because he hath not received instruction, and in the multitude of his folly he shall be deceived.