Proverbs 5-6

5My child, be attentive to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
²so that you may hold on to prudence,
and your lips may guard knowledge.
³For the lips of a loose woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
⁴but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
⁵Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to Sheol.
⁶She does not keep straight to the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it. ⁷And now, my child, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
⁸Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house;
⁹or you will give your honor to others,
and your years to the merciless,
¹⁰and strangers will take their fill of your wealth,
and your labors will go to the house of an alien;
¹¹and at the end of your life you will groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
¹²and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof !
¹³I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
¹⁴Now I am at the point of utter ruin
in the public assembly.” ¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
¹⁶Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
¹⁷Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for sharing with strangers.
¹⁸Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
¹⁹a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
May her breasts satisfy you at all times;
may you be intoxicated always by her love.
²⁰Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
²¹For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord,
and he examines all their paths.
²²The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them,
and they are caught in the toils of their sin.
²³They die for lack of discipline,
and because of their great folly they are lost.
6My child, if you have given your pledge to your neighbor,
if you have bound yourself to another,
²you are snared by the utterance of your lips,
caught by the words of your mouth.
³So do this, my child, and save yourself,
for you have come into your neighbor’s power:
go, hurry, and plead with your neighbor.
⁴Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
⁵save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler. ⁶Go to the ant, you lazybones;
consider its ways, and be wise.
⁷Without having any chief
or officer or ruler,
⁸it prepares its food in summer,
and gathers its sustenance in harvest.
⁹How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
When will you rise from your sleep?
¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
¹¹and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want, like an armed warrior. ¹²A scoundrel and a villain
goes around with crooked speech,
¹³winking the eyes, shuffling the feet,
pointing the fingers,
¹⁴with perverted mind devising evil,
continually sowing discord;
¹⁵on such a one calamity will descend suddenly;
in a moment, damage beyond repair. ¹⁶There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
¹⁷haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
¹⁸a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to evil,
¹⁹a lying witness who testifies falsely,
and one who sows discord in a family. ²⁰My child, keep your father’s commandment,
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
²¹Bind them upon your heart always;
tie them around your neck.
²²When you walk, they will lead you;
when you lie down, they will watch over you;
and when you awake, they will talk with you.
²³For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
²⁴to preserve you from the wife of another,
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
²⁵Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
²⁶for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread,
but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.
²⁷Can fire be carried in the bosom
without burning one’s clothes?
²⁸Or can one walk on hot coals
without scorching the feet?
²⁹So is he who sleeps with his neighbor’s wife;
no one who touches her will go unpunished.
³⁰Thieves are not despised who steal only
to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry.
³¹Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold;
they will forfeit all the goods of their house.
³²But he who commits adultery has no sense;
he who does it destroys himself.
³³He will get wounds and dishonor,
and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
³⁴For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury,
and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge.
³⁵He will accept no compensation,
and refuses a bribe no matter how great.

From the oremus Bible Browser https://bible.oremus.org v2.9.2 30 June 2021.