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[1]My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
[2]Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of thine eye.
[3]Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thy heart.
[4]Say unto wisdom: 'Thou art my sister', and call understanding thy kinswoman;
[5]That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the alien woman that maketh smooth her words.
[6]For at the window of my house I looked forth through my lattice;
[7]And I beheld among the thoughtless ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,
[8]Passing through the street near her corner, and he went the way to her house;
[9]In the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness.
[10]And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and wily of heart.
[11]She is riotous and rebellious, her feet abide not in her house;
[12]Now she is in the streets, now in the broad places, and lieth in wait at every corner.
[13]So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face she said unto him:
[14]'Sacrifices of peace-offerings were due from me; this day have I paid my vows.
[15]Therefore came I forth to meet thee, to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
[16]I have decked my couch with coverlets, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.
[17]I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
[18]Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning; let us solace ourselves with loves.
[19]For my husband is not at home, he is gone a long journey;
[20]He hath taken the bag of money with him; he will come home at the full moon.'
[21]With her much fair speech she causeth him to yield, with the blandishment of her lips she enticeth him away.
[22]He goeth after her straightway, as an ox that goeth to the slaughter, or as one in fetters to the correction of the fool;
[23]Till an arrow strike through his liver; as a bird hasteneth to the snare—and knoweth not that it is at the cost of his life.
[24]Now therefore, O ye children, hearken unto me, and attend to the words of my mouth.
[25]Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
[26]For she hath cast down many wounded; yea, a mighty host are all her slain.
[27]Her house is the way to the nether-world, going down to the chambers of death.
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