1My son, attend to my wisdom; to my understanding incline your ear,
2that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.
3For the lips of a strange woman drop honeycomb, and smoother than oil is her palate;
4but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5Her feet go down to death; her steps lay hold of Sheol.
6The path of life (chai) — lest she should weigh it, her tracks wander, she does not know.
7And now, sons, hear me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
8Keep your way far from her, and do not come near to the entrance of her house,
9lest you give your splendor to others, and your years to the cruel one,
10lest strangers be filled with your strength, and your toils be in the house of a foreigner;
11and you groan at your end, when your flesh (basar) and your body are consumed,
12and you say: "How I hated instruction, and my heart spurned reproof!
13And I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, and to those who instructed me I did not incline my ear.
14Almost I was in all evil, in the midst of the assembly and the congregation."
15Drink waters from your own cistern, and flowing waters from the midst of your own well.
16Let your springs overflow outside, in the squares channels of water.
17Let them be for you alone, and not for strangers with you.
18Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife (ishah) of your youth.
19A loving hind and a graceful doe — let her breasts satisfy you at all times; with her love be ravished always.
20And why should you be ravished, my son, with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?
21For before the eyes of YHWH are the ways of a man (ish), and all his tracks He weighs.
22His own iniquities will capture him, the wicked one, and in the cords of his sin he is held fast.
23He will die for lack of instruction, and in the abundance of his folly he goes astray.