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[1]My son! to my wisdom give attention, To mine understanding incline thine ear,
[2]To observe thoughtfulness, And knowledge do thy lips keep.
[3]For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And smoother than oil [is] her mouth,
[4]And her latter end [is] bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a sword [with] mouths.
[5]Her feet are going down to death, Sheol do her steps take hold of.
[6]The path of life -- lest thou ponder, Moved have her paths -- thou knowest not.
[7]And now, ye sons, hearken to me, And turn not from sayings of my mouth.
[8]Keep far from off her thy way, And come not near unto the opening of her house,
[9]Lest thou give to others thy honour, And thy years to the fierce,
[10]Lest strangers be filled [with] thy power, And thy labours in the house of a stranger,
[11]And thou hast howled in thy latter end, In the consumption of thy flesh and thy food,
[12]And hast said, `How have I hated instruction, And reproof hath my heart despised,
[13]And I have not hearkened to the voice of my directors, And to my teachers have not inclined mine ear.
[14]As a little thing I have been all evil, In the midst of an assembly and a company.
[15]Drink waters out of thine own cistern, Even flowing ones out of thine own well.
[16]Let thy fountains be scattered abroad, In broad places rivulets of waters.
[17]Let them be to thee for thyself, And not to strangers with thee.
[18]Let thy fountain be blessed, And rejoice because of the wife of thy youth,
[19]A hind of loves, and a roe of grace! Let her loves satisfy thee at all times, In her love magnify thyself continually.
[20]And why dost thou magnify thyself, My son, with a stranger? And embrace the bosom of a strange woman?
[21]For over-against the eyes of Jehovah are the ways of each, And all his paths He is pondering.
[22]His own iniquities do capture the wicked, And with the ropes of his sin he is holden.
[23]He dieth without instruction, And in the abundance of his folly magnifieth himself!
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