LEB - Proverbs - 5

5:1  My child, be attentive to my wisdom, and to my understanding incline your ear;

5:2  in order to keep prudence, and knowledge will guard your lips.

5:3  For the lips of the strange woman will drip honey, and smoother than oil is her mouth.

5:4  But her end is bitter as the wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

5:5  Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of Sheol.

5:6  She does not observe the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

5:7  Now, O children, listen to me; do not depart from the sayings of my mouth.

5:8  Keep your paths far from her, and do not go near to the door of her house,

5:9  lest you give your honor to the others, and your years to the merciless,

5:10  lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,

5:11  and you groan at your end, when your flesh and body are consumed,

5:12  and say “How I hated discipline, and I despised reproof!”

5:13  and “I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, and I did not incline my ear to my instructors!

5:14  I was almost at utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”

5:15  Drink water from your own cistern and flowing waters from inside your own well.

5:16  Shall your springs be scattered outward? In the streets, shall there be streams of water?

5:17  May they be yours alone, and not for strangers who are with you.

5:18  May your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth.

5:19  She is a deer of love and a doe of grace; may her breasts satisfy you ⌞always⌟; by her love may you be intoxicated continually.

5:20  Why should you be intoxicated, my child, by a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?

5:21  For before the eyes of Yahweh are ⌞human ways⌟, and all his paths he examines.

5:22  His iniquities shall ensnare him, the evildoer, and in the vanity of his sin he shall be caught.

5:23  He shall die ⌞for lack of⌟ discipline, and in the greatness of his folly he shall be lost.