5 My son, attend unto my wisdom;
Incline thine ear to my understanding:
² That thou mayest preserve discretion,
And that thy lips may keep knowledge.
³ For the lips of a strange woman drop honey,
And her mouth is smoother than oil:
⁴ But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.
⁵ Her feet go down to death;
Her steps take hold on Sheol;
^6 [a]So that she findeth not the level path of life:
Her ways are unstable, and ^[b]she knoweth it not.

⁷ Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me,
And depart not from the words of my mouth.
⁸ Remove thy way far from her,
And come not nigh the door of her house;
⁹ Lest thou give thine honor unto others,
And thy years unto the cruel;
¹⁰ Lest strangers be filled with thy ^[c]strength,
And thy labors be in the house of an alien,
¹¹ And thou ^[d]mourn at thy latter end,
When thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
¹² And say, How have I hated instruction,
And my heart despised reproof;
¹³ Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers,
Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
¹⁴ I was well-nigh in all evil
In the midst of the assembly and congregation.

¹⁵ Drink waters out of thine own cistern,
And running waters out of thine own well.
^16 [e]Should thy springs be dispersed abroad,
And streams of water in the streets?
¹⁷ Let them be for thyself alone,
And not for strangers with thee.
¹⁸ Let thy fountain be blessed;
And rejoice in the wife of thy youth.
¹⁹ As a loving hind and a pleasant doe,
Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times;
And ^[f]be thou ravished always with her love.
²⁰ For why shouldest thou, my son, ^[g]be ravished with a strange woman,
And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
²¹ For the ways of man are before the eyes of Jehovah;
And he ^[h]maketh level all his paths.
²² His own iniquities shall take the wicked,
And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.
²³ He shall die for lack of instruction;
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.