NETtext - Proverbs - 5

5:1  My child, be attentive to my wisdom, pay close attention to my understanding,

5:2  in order to safeguard discretion, and that your lips may guard knowledge.

5:3  For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her seductive words are smoother than olive oil,

5:4  but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

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

5:6  Lest she should make level the path leading to life, her paths are unstable but she does not know it.

5:7  So now, children, listen to me; do not turn aside from the words I speak.

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

5:9  lest you give your vigor to others and your years to a cruel person,

5:10  lest strangers devour your strength, and your labor benefit another man's house.

5:11  And at the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are wasted away.

5:12  And you will say, "How I hated discipline! My heart spurned reproof!

5:13  For I did not obey my teachers and I did not heed my instructors.

5:14  I almost came to complete ruin in the midst of the whole congregation!"

5:15  Drink water from your own cistern and running water from your own well.

5:16  Should your springs be dispersed outside, your streams of water in the wide plazas?

5:17  Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.

5:18  May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in your young wife -

5:19  a loving doe, a graceful deer; may her breasts satisfy you at all times, may you be captivated by her love always.

5:20  But why should you be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, and embrace the bosom of a different woman?

5:21  For the ways of a person are in front of the LORD's eyes, and the LORD weighs all that person's paths.

5:22  The wicked will be captured by his own iniquities, and he will be held by the cords of his own sin.

5:23  He will die because there was no discipline; because of the greatness of his folly he will reel.