Prov-05

← Proverbs 04 | Proverbs | Proverbs 06 →


v1

My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,

v2

that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.

v3

For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,

v4

but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

v5

Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;

v6

she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

v7

And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

v8

Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,

v9

lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless,

v10

lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,

v11

and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,

v12

and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!

v13

I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.

v14

I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.”

v15

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.

v16

Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?

v17

Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.

v18

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

v19

a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.

v20

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

v21

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.

v22

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

v23

He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.


← Proverbs 04 | Proverbs | Proverbs 06 →