1My son, attend to my wisdom; bow your ear to my understanding;

2That you may keep discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge.

3For the lips of a wanton woman drip as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil;

4But her end is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

5Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on the grave.

6She does not ponder the path of life; her ways are unstable--you cannot know them.

7Now therefore hear me, O you children, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

8Remove your ways far from her, and do not come near the door of her house,

9Lest you give your honor unto others and your years unto the cruel;

10Lest strangers be filled with your wealth, and your labors be in the house of a stranger;

11And you moan when your end comes, when your flesh and your body are consumed,

12And say, "How I hated instruction, and my heart despised correction;

13And I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ears to those who taught me!

14I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the congregation and assembly."

15Drink waters out of your own cistern and running waters out of your own well.

16Let your fountains be dispersed abroad as rivers of waters in the streets.

17Let them be only your own, and not strangers' with you.

18Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth.

19 Let her be as the loving deer and pleasant doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times, and be ravished always with her love.

20For why will you, 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 ponders all his paths.

22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be held with the cords of his sins.

23He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall breathe his last.