1My son , attend unto my wisdom , and bow thine ear to my understanding : 2That thou mayest regard discretion , and that thy lips may keep knowledge . 3For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb , and her mouth is smoother than oil : 4But her end is bitter as wormwood , sharp as a twoedged sword . 5Her feet go down to death ; her steps take hold on hell . 6Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life , her ways are moveable , that thou canst not know them . 7Hear me now therefore, O ye children , and depart not from the words of my mouth . 8Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house : 9Lest thou give thine honour unto others , and thy years unto the cruel : 10Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth ; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger ; 11And thou mourn at the last , when thy flesh and thy body are consumed , 12And say , How have I hated instruction , and my heart despised reproof ; 13And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers , nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! 14I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly .
The Consequences of Adultery
15Drink waters out of thine own cistern , and running waters out of thine own well . 16Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad , and rivers of waters in the streets . 17Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. 18Let thy fountain be blessed : and rejoice with the wife of thy youth . 19Let 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 . 20And why wilt thou, my son , be ravished with a strange woman , and embrace the bosom of a stranger ? 21For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD , and he pondereth all his goings . 22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins . 23He shall die without instruction ; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray .