Proverbs 5:1-23

¹My son, attend to my wisdom, and apply your ear to my words;

²that you may keep good understanding, and the discretion of my lips gives you a charge. Give no heed to a worthless woman;

³for honey drops from the lips of a harlot, who for a season pleases your palate:

⁴but afterwards you will find her more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword.

⁵For the feet of folly lead those who deal with her down to the grave with death; and her steps are not established.

⁶For she goes not upon the paths of life; but her ways are slippery, and not easily known.

⁷Now then, my son, hear me, and make not my words of none effect.

⁸Remove your way far from her; draw not near to the doors of her house:

⁹lest you give away your life to others, and your substance to the merciless:

¹⁰lest strangers be filled with your strength, and your labours come into the houses of strangers;

¹¹And you repent at last, when the flesh of your body is consumed,

¹²and you shall say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart avoided reproofs!

¹³I heard not the voice of him that instructed me, and taught me, neither did I apply my ear.

¹⁴I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

¹⁵Drink waters out of your own vessels, and out of your own springing wells.

¹⁶Let not waters out of your fountain be spilt by you, but let your waters go into your streets.

¹⁷Let them be only your own, and let no stranger partake with you.

¹⁸Let your fountain of water be truly your own; and rejoice with the wife of your youth.

¹⁹Let your loving hart and your graceful colt company with you, and let her be considered your own, and be with you at all times; for ravished with her love you shall be greatly increased.

²⁰Be not intimate with a strange woman, neither fold yourself in the arms of a woman not your own.

²¹For the ways of a man are before the eyes of God, and he looks on all his paths.

²²Iniquities ensnare a man, and every one is bound in the chains of his own sins.

²³Such a man dies with the uninstructed; and he is cast forth from the abundance of his own substance, and has perished through folly.