Warnings about the Adulteress

1My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.

2Keep my commandments, and live; and my teaching, as the apple of thine eye.

3Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the tablet of thy heart.

4Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call intelligence [thy] kinswoman:

5that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger who flattereth with her words.

6For at the window of my house, I looked forth through my lattice,

7and I beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the sons, a young man void of understanding,

8passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house,

9in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness.

10And behold, there met him a woman in the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart.

11She is clamorous and unmanageable; her feet abide not in her house:

12now without, now in the broadways, -- and she lieth in wait at every corner.

13And she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,

14I have peace-offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows:

15therefore came I forth to meet thee, to seek earnestly thy face, and I have found thee.

16I have decked my bed with tapestry coverlets of variegated linen from Egypt;

17I have perfumed my couch with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

18Come, let us revel in love until the morning, let us delight ourselves with loves.

19For the husband is not at home, he is gone a long journey;

20he hath taken the money-bag with him, he will come home on the day of the full moon.

21With her much enticement she beguiled him; with the smoothness of her lips she constrained him.

22He went after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, and as stocks [serve] for the correction of the fool;

23till an arrow strike through his liver: as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for its life.

24And now, ye sons, hearken unto me, and attend to the words of my mouth.

25Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths:

26for she hath cast down many wounded, and all slain by her were strong.

27Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.