The Adulteress’ Trap

1My son, keep my words

And treasure my commandments within you.

2Keep my commandments and live,

And my [†]law as the [†]apple of your eye.

3Bind them on your fingers;

Write them on the tablet of your heart.

4Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”

And call understanding your intimate friend;

5In order to keep you from the strange woman,

From the foreign woman who [†]flatters with her words.

6For at the window of my house

I looked out through my lattice,

7And I saw among the simple,

And discerned among the [†]sons

A young man lacking a heart of wisdom,

8Passing through the street near her corner;

And he strides along the way to her house,

9In the twilight, in the evening of that day,

In the [†]middle of the night, and in the thick darkness.

10And behold, a woman comes to meet him,

Dressed as a harlot and [†]cunning of heart.

11She is boisterous and rebellious,

Her feet do not dwell at home;

12Stepping in the streets, stepping in the squares,

And near every corner she lies in wait.

13So she seizes him and kisses him

[†]And with a brazen face she says to him:

14“The sacrifices of peace offerings are with me;

Today I paid my vows.

15Therefore I have come out to meet you,

To seek your face earnestly, and I have found you.

16I have spread my couch with coverings,

With colored linens of Egypt.

17I have sprinkled my bed

With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

18Come, then, let us drink our fill as lovers until morning;

Let us delight ourselves with the pleasures of love.

19For [†]my husband is not at home,

He has gone on a journey far away;

20He took a bag of silver in his hand,

On the day of the full moon he will come home.”

21With her abundant [†]persuasions she entices him;

With her flattering lips she drives him to herself.

22He suddenly follows her

As an ox goes to the slaughter,

Or [†]as one in fetters to the discipline of an ignorant fool,

23Until an arrow pierces through his liver;

As a bird hastens to the snare,

And he does not know that it will cost him his [†]soul.

24So now, my sons, listen to me,

And pay attention to the words of my mouth.

25Do not let your heart go astray into her ways,

Do not wander into her pathways.

26For many are the slain whom she has cast down,

And numerous are all those killed by her.

27The ways to Sheol are in her house,

Descending to the chambers of death.