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[1] My son, be attentive to my wisdom,
incline your ear to my understanding;
[2] that you may keep discretion,
and your lips may guard knowledge.
[3] For the lips of a loose woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
[4] but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
[5] Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to Sheol;
[6] she does not take heed to the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.
[7] And now, O sons, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
[8] Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house;
[9] lest you give your honor to others
and your years to the merciless;
[10] lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
and your labors go to the house of an alien;
[11] and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
[12] and you say, “How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!
[13] I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
[14] I was at the point of utter ruin
in the assembled congregation.”
[15] Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
[16] Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
[17] Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
[18] Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
[19] a lovely hind, a graceful doe.
Let her affection fill you at all times with delight,
be infatuated always with her love.
[20] Why should you be infatuated, my son, with a loose woman
and embrace the bosom of an adventuress?
[21] For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and he watches all his paths.
[22] The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is caught in the toils of his sin.
[23] He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is lost.
The Book of Proverbs is provided for non-commercial purposes by the University of Pennsylvania Center for Computer Analysis of Texts. Licensing information can be found here.
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