Proverbs 5

1My son, listen closely to the wisdom I have; bend your ear to what I understand, 2so that you keep your foresight and your lips guard what you know. 3For honey drips from the lips of the woman who is not yours, and her talk is smoother than olive oil, 4but what she leaves you with is bitter as wormwood, and it cuts like a two-edged sword. 5Her feet go down toward death; her steps make straight for Sheol. 6She does not consider the road to life; her ways drift, and she is unaware of it.

7So now, sons, hear me out, and do not stray from the words I speak. 8Keep well away from her, and do not even come near her front door, 9or you will hand over your strength to others and your years to someone without mercy, 10and strangers will feed on your wealth, and what you worked hard for will end up in an outsider’s house, 11and when it is all over you will groan, your body wasted and your flesh used up, 12and you will say, “How I hated being corrected! How my heart despised every warning! 13I paid no attention to what my teachers said; I would not lend an ear to those who taught me. 14I came close to complete ruin, there in front of the whole assembled community.” 15Draw your water from your own cistern, the fresh streams from inside your own well. 16Why let your springs run out into the street, and your streams flow through the town squares? 17Keep them for yourself alone, with no strangers drinking beside you. 18May your spring be blessed; find your joy in the woman you married when you were young, 19a lovely doe, a graceful mountain goat. Let her breasts content you at every season, and let her love carry you away always. 20Why, my son, let yourself be carried away by a woman who is not yours, or take an outsider in your arms? 21For everything a person does is in plain view of the LORD, and he weighs every path they take. 22Their own wrongdoing will catch the wicked, and the ropes of their sin will tie them up. 23Such people die for lack of discipline, carried away by their great folly.