Proverbs 5:1-17 ▼

1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom, and to my understanding incline your ear,

2 to keep discretion, and that your lips may guard knowledge.

3 For the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey, and smoother than oil is her palate;

4 but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp with mouths as a sword.

5 Her feet go down to death; her steps lay hold of sheol.

6 The path of life she does not weigh; her tracks are unstable; she does not know it.

7 And now, sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.

8 Keep your path far away from her, and do not go near to the opening of her house,

9 lest you give to others your splendor, and your years to a cruel one;

10 lest strangers be satisfied by your strength, and your labors be in the house of a foreigner;

11 and you groan at your end, in the consumption of your flesh and your body,

12 and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart spurned rebuke!

13 And I have not listened to the voice of my instructors, and I have not inclined my ear to those teaching me.

14 Am I as a little from all evil, in the midst of the assembly and the gathering.”

15 Drink water from your own cistern and flowing from the midst of your own well.

16 Should your fountains be dispersed outside, channels of water in broad places?

17 Let them be for you, yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.