5:1 | My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,

5:2 | that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.

5:3 | For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,

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

5:5 | Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;

5:6 | she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

5:7 | And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

5:8 | Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,

5:9 | lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless,

5:10 | lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,

5:11 | and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,

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

5:13 | I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.

5:14 | I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation."

5:15 | Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.

5:16 | Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?

5:17 | Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.

5:18 | Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

5:19 | a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.

5:20 | Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

5:22 | The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

5:23 | He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.