My son, attend to my wisdom, and apply thine ear to my
words;
that thou mayest keep good understanding, and the discretion of my
lips gives thee a charge.
Give no heed to a worthless woman;
for honey drops from the lips of a harlot, who for a season
pleases thy palate:
but afterwards thou wilt find her [a]
more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword.
For the feet of folly lead those who deal with her down to the
grave with death; and her steps are not established.
For she goes not upon the paths of life; but her ways are
slippery, and not easily known.
Now then, my son, hear me, and make not my words of none
effect.
Remove thy way far from her; draw not near to the doors of her
house:
lest thou give away thy life to others, and thy substance to the
merciless:
lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours come
into the houses of strangers;
and thou repent at last, when the flesh of thy body is consumed,
and thou shalt say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart
avoided reproofs!
[b] I heard not the voice of him that
instructed me, and taught me, neither did I apply mine ear.
I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and
assembly.
Drink waters out of thine own vessels, and out of thine own
springing wells.
Let not waters out of thy fountain be spilt by thee, but let thy
waters go into thy streets.
Let them be only thine own, and let no stranger partake with thee.
Let thy fountain of water be truly thine own; and rejoice
with the wife of thy youth.
Let thy loving hart and thy graceful colt company with
thee, and let her be considered thine own, and be with thee at all
times; for ravished with her love thou shalt be greatly increased.
Be not intimate with a strange woman, neither fold thyself in the
arms of a woman not thine own.
For the ways of a man are before the eyes of God, and he looks on
all his paths.
Iniquities ensnare a man, and every one is bound in the chains of
his own sins.
Such a man dies with the uninstructed; and he is cast forth from
the abundance of his own substance, and has perished through folly.
[a]Gr. a more bitter thing.
[b]Alex. omits 'not.'
[English translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee
Brenton (1807-1862) originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons,
Ltd., London, 1851]
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