Chapter 5

¹My son, listen to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,

²so you may guard discretion, and your lips may preserve knowledge.

³For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,

⁴but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.

⁶She gives no thought to the path of life; her ways are unstable, and she does not know it.

⁷Now then, my sons, listen to me and do not turn aside 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 the merciless,

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

¹¹and at the 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 incline my ear to my instructors.

¹⁴I am now at the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the assembly.”

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.

¹⁶Should your springs overflow in the streets, or your streams of water in the public squares?

¹⁷Let them be yours alone, and not for strangers with you.

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

¹⁹a loving doe, a graceful deer—let her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love continually.

²⁰Why, my son, be captivated by an immoral woman or embrace the bosom of a stranger?

²¹For the ways of a person are before the eyes of the Lord, and He examines all their paths.

²²The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them, and they are caught in the cords of their sin.

²³They die for lack of discipline, and because of their great folly they are led astray. Proverbs 6 The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 6 – VKJV