Warnings about the Adulteress

1My son, watch my words, and thou shalt hide my commands with thee.

2Watch my commands, and live; and my law as the pupil of thine eyes.

3Bind them upon thy fingers, and write them upon the tablet of thine heart.

4Say to wisdom, Thou my sister; and thou shalt call knowledge to understanding:

5To watch thyself from the strange woman, from the stranger making smooth her sayings.

6For in the window of my house I looked forth through my lattice,

7And I shall see among the simple, I shall perceive among the sons a youth wanting heart,

8Passing in the street near her corner; and he will step the way of her house,

9In the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the middle of the night, in the thick darkness:

10And behold, a woman to his meeting, the attire of a harlot, and hidden of heart.

11She being noisy and perverse; her feet will not dwell in her house:

12One time without, one time in the broad ways; and she will lie in wait near every corner.

13She laid hold upon him and kissed to him; she strengthened her face, and she will say to him,

14Sacrifices of peace upon me: today I repaid my vows.

15For this, I shall come forth to thy meeting, to seek thy face, and I shall find thee.

16With adornings I spread my bed, variegated with thread of Egypt.

17I sprinkled my bed with myrrh and aloes and cinnamon.

18Come, we will be satisfied with loves till the morning: we will rejoice ourselves with loves.

19For the man not in the house, he went in a way far off.

20He took a bundle of silver in his hand; he will come to his house the day of the full moon.

21With much of her talking she caused him to turn aside; with the smoothness of her lips she will thrust him away.

22He went after her suddenly as the ox will go to the slaughter, and as the fetter for the correction of the foolish.

23Till an arrow shall cleave his liver; as a bird hastening to the snare, and not knowing that it is for his soul.

24And now, ye sons, hear to me, and attend to the sayings of my mouth.

25And thy heart shall not deviate to her ways; thou shalt not wander in her beaten paths.

26For she cast down many wounded, and the strong all being slain by her.

27Her house the ways to hades, going down to the chambers of death.