Warning Against the Strange Woman

¹ 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⌟.¹

1. A single word meaning “pupil of the eye”

³ Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴ Say to wisdom,¹ “you are my sister,” and you shall call insight,² “⌞intimate friend⌟.”³

1. Hebrew “the wisdom”
2. Hebrew “the insight”
3. Literally “one who is known.” To “know” is often a euphemism for intercourse. Therefore “intimate friend” may also be read “lover.”

⁵ In order to guard yourself from ⌞an adulteress⌟,¹ from the foreigner who ⌞makes her words smooth⌟.²

1. Literally “a strange woman”
2. Literally “causes to be smooth her words”

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⌟,¹

1. Literally “heart”

⁸ passing on the street ⌞at⌟¹ her corner, and he takes the road to her house,

1. Literally “at the place of”

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 prostitute¹ and ⌞a secret heart⌟.²

1. Or “whore”
2. Literally “secret of heart”

¹¹ She is loud and stubborn; her feet do not stay at her house.

¹² Now in the street, now in the square, ⌞at⌟¹ every corner she lies in wait.

1. Literally “at the place of”

¹³ She took hold of¹ him and kissed him. Her face was impudent, and she said to him,

1. Or “strengthened”

¹⁴ “Sacrifices of peace offerings are upon me; ⌞today⌟¹ I completed my vows.

1. Literally “the day”

¹⁵ So¹ I have come out to meet you, to seek your face, and I have found you.

1. Hebrew “thus”

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 man¹ in his home; he has gone on a ⌞long journey⌟.²

1. Or “husband”
2. Literally “a journey from far”

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,

Reiteration of the Warning Against a Strange Woman

²³ until an arrow pierces his ⌞entrails⌟,¹ like a bird rushing into a snare, but he does not know that ⌞it will cost him his life⌟.²

1. Literally “heaviness,” often referring to the liver
2. Literally “it is against his life”

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 countless¹ are all of her killings.

1. Or “strong men”

²⁷ The ways of Sheol¹ are her house, descending to chambers of death.

1. A term for the place where the dead reside, i.e., the Underworld