| Berean Study Bible | King James Bible |
| 1My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight, | 1My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: |
| 2that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. | 2That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. |
| 3Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil, | 3For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: |
| 4in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword. | 4But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. |
| 5Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to Sheol. | 5Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. |
| 6She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable. | 6Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. |
| 7So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth. | 7Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. |
| 8Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house, | 8Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: |
| 9lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel; | 9Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: |
| 10lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner. | 10Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; |
| 11At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent, | 11And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, |
| 12and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! | 12And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; |
| 13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors. | 13And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! |
| 14I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.” | 14I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. |
| 15Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well. | 15Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. |
| 16Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? | 16Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. |
| 17Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. | 17Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. |
| 18May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth: | 18Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. |
| 19A loving doe, a graceful fawn—may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever. | 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. |
| 20Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger? | 20And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? |
| 21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths. | 21For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. |
| 22The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him. | 22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. |
| 23He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly. | 23He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. |
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