JPS - Proverbs - 7

7:1  My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.

7:2  Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of thine eye.

7:3  Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thy heart.

7:4  Say unto wisdom: 'Thou art my sister', and call understanding thy kinswoman;

7:5  That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the alien woman that maketh smooth her words.

7:6  For at the window of my house I looked forth through my lattice;

7:7  And I beheld among the thoughtless ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,

7:8  Passing through the street near her corner, and he went the way to her house;

7:9  In the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness.

7:10  And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and wily of heart.

7:11  She is riotous and rebellious, her feet abide not in her house;

7:12  Now she is in the streets, now in the broad places, and lieth in wait at every corner.

7:13  So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face she said unto him:

7:14  'Sacrifices of peace-offerings were due from me; this day have I paid my vows.

7:15  Therefore came I forth to meet thee, to seek thy face, and I have found thee.

7:16  I have decked my couch with coverlets, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.

7:17  I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

7:18  Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning; let us solace ourselves with loves.

7:19  For my husband is not at home, he is gone a long journey;

7:20  He hath taken the bag of money with him; he will come home at the full moon.'

7:21  With her much fair speech she causeth him to yield, with the blandishment of her lips she enticeth him away.

7:22  He goeth after her straightway, as an ox that goeth to the slaughter, or as one in fetters to the correction of the fool;

7:23  Till an arrow strike through his liver; as a bird hasteneth to the snare-- and knoweth not that it is at the cost of his life.

7:24  Now therefore, O ye children, hearken unto me, and attend to the words of my mouth.

7:25  Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.

7:26  For she hath cast down many wounded; yea, a mighty host are all her slain.

7:27  Her house is the way to the nether-world, going down to the chambers of death.