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My son attend unto my wisdom and bow thine ear to my understanding
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That thou mayest regard discretion and that thy lips may keep knowledge
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For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb and her mouth is smoother than oil
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But her end is bitter as wormwood sharp as a twoedged sword
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Her feet go down to death her steps take hold on hell
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Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life her ways are moveable that thou canst not know them
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Hear me now therefore O ye children and depart not from the words of my mouth
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Remove thy way far from her and come not nigh the door of her house
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Lest thou give thine honour unto others and thy years unto the cruel
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Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth and thy labours be in the house of a stranger
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And thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed
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And say How have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof
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And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me
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I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly
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Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well
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Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in the streets
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Let them be only thine own and not st ngers’ with thee
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Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth
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Let 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
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And why wilt thou my son be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger
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For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD and he pondereth all his goings
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His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins
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He shall die without instruction and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray