1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight, | TOSK |
2 that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. | TOSK |
3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil, | TOSK |
4 in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword. | TOSK |
5 Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to Sheol. | TOSK |
6 She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable. | TOSK |
7 So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth. | TOSK |
8 Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house, | TOSK |
9 lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel; | TOSK |
10 lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner. | TOSK |
11 At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent, | TOSK |
12 and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! | TOSK |
13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors. | TOSK |
14 I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.” | TOSK |
15 Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well. | TOSK |
16 Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? | TOSK |
17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth: | TOSK |
19 A loving doe, a graceful fawn—may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever. | TOSK |
20 Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger? | TOSK |
21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths. | TOSK |
22 The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him. | TOSK |
23 He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly. | TOSK |