¹ My son, to my wisdom, attend, and, to mine understanding, incline thou thine ear:

² That thou mayest preserve discretion,—and, as for knowledge, that thy lips may guard it.

³ For, with sweet droppings, drip the lips of her that is a stranger, and, smoother than oil, is her mouth;

⁴ But, the latter end of her, is bitter as wormwood, sharp, as a two-edged sword!

⁵ Her feet, are going down to death,—on hades, will her steps take firm hold.

⁶ Lest, the path of life, she should ponder, her tracks have wandered she knoweth not [whither] .

⁷ Now, therefore, ye sons, hearken unto me, and do not turn away from the sayings of my mouth.

⁸ Keep far from her thy way, and do not go near the opening of her house:

⁹ Lest thou give, to other men, thy vigour, and thy years, to him that is cruel:

¹⁰ Lest strange men, be well fed, by thy strength, and, thy toils, be in the house of the alien.

¹¹ So shalt thou grieve in thy latter end, in the failing of thy flesh and of thy healthy condition;

¹² And thou shalt say—How I hated correction! and, reproof, my heart disdained;

¹³ Neither hearkened I to the voice of my teachers, nor, to my instructors, inclined I mine ear:

¹⁴ Soon was I in all evil, in the midst of convocation and assembly.

¹⁵ Drink thou water out of thine own cistern, and flowing streams out of the midst of thine own well.

¹⁶ Let not thy fountains, flow over, abroad, in the streets, dividings of waters:

¹⁷ Let them be for thyself, alone, and not for strangers with thee.

¹⁸ Let thy well-spring be blessed,—and get thy joy from the wife of thy youth:—

¹⁹ A loving hind! a graceful doe! let, her bosom, content thee at all times, and, in her love, mayst thou stray evermore.

²⁰ Wherefore, then, shouldst thou stray, my son, with a strange woman? or embrace the bosom of a woman unknown?

²¹ For, before the eyes of Yahweh, are the ways of a man,—and, all his tracks, doth he consider:

²² His own iniquities, shall entrap him with the lawless, and, by the cords of his own sin, shall he be seized.

²³ He, shall die, for lack of discipline, and, by the abounding of his perversity, shall he be lost.