Proverbs 5

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