Proverbs 5

5 ¹My son, pay attention to my wisdom; listen closely to my understanding, ²so that you may guard discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. ³For the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil, ⁴but in the end she is bitter as poison, sharp as a double-edged sword. ⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of the grave. ^a a v5 Sheol: the Hebrew word for the realm of the dead — the grave, the unseen world below. ⁶She gives no thought to the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

⁷And now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. ⁸Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, ⁹lest you give your honor to others and your years to one who is cruel, ¹⁰lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your hard-earned labors go to the house of a foreigner, ¹¹and at your end you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, ¹²and you say, "How I hated discipline, and my heart despised correction! ¹³I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or heed my instructors. ¹⁴I was at the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the assembled congregation."

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. ¹⁶Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? ¹⁷Let them be yours alone, and not shared with strangers. ¹⁸May your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, ¹⁹a loving doe, a graceful deer. May her love satisfy you always; may you be captivated continually by her love. ²⁰Why then, my son, should you be captivated by a forbidden woman and embrace another man's wife?

²¹For a man's ways are before the eyes of our Father, and he examines all the man's paths. ²²The wicked are caught by their own wrongdoing and held fast in the cords of their sin. ²³He will die for lack of discipline, and he will go astray because of his great foolishness.