Warning against Sexual Immorality

1My son, pay attention to my wisdom,

and listen closely to my insight,

2so you may carefully practicea discretion

and your lips preserve knowledge.

3For the lips of an adulteress drip honey,

and her speechb is smoother than oil.

4But in the end she is as bitter as wormwood,c

and as sharp as a double-edged sword.

5Her feet go down to death;

her steps lead to Sheol.d

6You aren’t thinking aboute where her life is headed;

her steps wander, but you do not realizef it.

7Now, children,g listen to me.

Don’t turn away from what I am saying.h

8Keepi far away from her,

and don’t go near the entrance to her house,

9so that you don’t give your honor to others,

and waste your best years;j

10so that strangers don’t enrich themselves at your expense,k

and your work won’t end up the possession of foreigners.l

11You will cry out in anguish when your end comes,

when your flesh and body are consumed,

12and you will say, “How I hated instruction,m

and my heart rejected correction!

13I did not obey my teachers

and did not listenn to my instructors.

14Now I am at the point of utter disaster

ino the assembly and in the congregation.”

The Delights of Marital Faithfulness

15Drink water from your own cistern,

and freshp water from your own well.

16Should your springs flow outside,

or streams of water in the street?

17They should be for you alone

and not for strangers who are with you.

18Let your fountain be blessed

and enjoy the wife of your youth.

19Like a loving deer, a beautiful doe,

let her breasts satisfy you all the time.

Be constantly intoxicated by her love.

20Why should you be intoxicated by an adulteress, my son,

and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?

21Indeed, what a man does isq always in the LORD’s presence,r

and he weighs all his paths.

22The wicked person’s iniquities will capture him,

and he will be held with the cords of his sin.

23He will die for lack of discipline,

and he goes astray because of his great folly.