Proverbs 5
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom, and incline your ear to my prudence,
My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ears to my understanding,
2 so that you may guard your thinking, and so that your lips may preserve discipline. Do not pay attention to the deceit of a woman.
so you may learn about discretion and your lips may protect knowledge.
3 For the lips of a loose woman are like a dripping honeycomb, and her voice is smoother than oil.
For the lips of an adulteress drip with honey and her mouth is smoother than oil,
4 But in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword.
but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, cutting like a sharp sword.
Her feet go down to death; her steps go all the way to Sheol. (Sheol h7585)
6 They do not walk along the path of life; her steps are wandering and untraceable.
She gives no thought to the path of life. Her footsteps wander; she does not know where she is going.
7 Therefore, my son, listen to me now, and do not withdraw from the words of my mouth.
Now, my sons, listen to me; do not turn away from listening to the words of my mouth.
8 Make your way at a distance from her, and do not approach the doors of her house.
Keep your path far away from her and do not come near the door of her house.
9 Do not give your honor to foreigners, and your years to the cruel.
In that way you will not give away your honor to others or years of your life to a cruel person;
10 Otherwise, outsiders may be filled with your strength, and your labors may be in a foreign house,
strangers will not feast on your wealth; what you have worked for will not go into the house of strangers.
11 and you may mourn in the end, when you will have consumed your flesh and your body. And so you may say:
At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body waste away.
12 “Why have I detested discipline, and why has my heart not been quieted by correction?
You will say, “How I hated instruction and my heart despised correction!
13 And why have I not listened to the voice of those who guided me? And why has my ear not inclined to my teachers?
I would not obey my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.
14 I have almost been with all evil in the midst of the church and of the assembly.”
I was almost completely ruined in the midst of the assembly, among the gathering of the people.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern and from the springs of your own well.
Drink water from your own cistern and drink running water from your own well.
16 Let your fountains be diverted far and wide, and divide your waters in the streets.
Should your springs overflow everywhere and your streams of water flow in the public squares?
17 Hold them for yourself alone, and do not let strangers be partakers with you.
Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you.
18 Let your spring be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth:
May your fountain be blessed and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a beloved doe and most pleasing fawn. Let her breasts inebriate you at all times. Be delighted continually by her love.
for she is a loving deer and a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be continually intoxicated by her love.
20 Why are you seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and why are you kept warm by the bosom of another?
For why should you, my son, be captivated by an adulteress; why should you embrace the breasts of an immoral woman?
21 The Lord beholds the ways of man, and he considers all his steps.
Yahweh sees everything a person does and watches all the paths he takes.
22 His own iniquities take hold of the impious, and he is bound by the cords of his own sins.
A wicked person will be seized by his own iniquities; the cords of his sin will hold him tight.
23 He shall die, for he has not held to discipline. And by the multitude of his foolishness, he shall be deceived.
He will die because he lacks instruction; he is led astray by his great foolishness.
