5:1 | MY SON, be attentive to my Wisdom [godly Wisdom learned by actual and costly experience], and incline your ear to my understanding [of what is becoming and prudent for you],

5:2 | That you may exercise proper discrimination and discretion and your lips may guard and keep knowledge and the wise answer [to temptation].

5:3 | For the lips of a loose woman drip honey as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil;

5:4 | But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged and devouring sword.

5:5 | Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of Sheol (Hades, the place of the dead).

5:6 | She loses sight of and walks not in the path of life; her ways wind about aimlessly, and you cannot know them.

5:7 | Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

5:8 | Let your way in life be far from her, and come not near the door of her house [avoid the very scenes of temptation],

5:9 | Lest you give your honor to others and your years to those without mercy,

5:10 | Lest strangers [and false teachings] take their fill of your strength and wealth and your labors go to the house of an alien [from God]--

5:11 | And you groan and mourn when your end comes, when your flesh and body are consumed,

5:12 | And you say, How I hated instruction and discipline, and my heart despised reproof!

5:13 | I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers nor submitted and consented to those who instructed me.

5:14 | [The extent and boldness of] my sin involved almost all evil [in the estimation] of the congregation and the community.

5:15 | Drink waters out of your own cistern [of a pure marriage relationship], and fresh running waters out of your own well.

5:16 | Should your offspring be dispersed abroad as water brooks in the streets?

5:17 | [Confine yourself to your own wife] let your children be for you alone, and not the children of strangers with you.

5:18 | Let your fountain [of human life] be blessed [with the rewards of fidelity], and rejoice in the wife of your youth.

5:19 | Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant doe [tender, gentle, attractive]--let her bosom satisfy you at all times, and always be transported with delight in her love.

5:20 | Why should you, my son, be infatuated with a loose woman, embrace the bosom of an outsider, and go astray?

5:22 | His own iniquities shall ensnare the wicked man, and he shall be held with the cords of his sin.

5:23 | He will die for lack of discipline and instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray and be lost.