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6My child, if you have given your pledge to your neighbor,
if you have bound yourself to another,
²you are snared by the utterance of your lips,
caught by the words of your mouth.
³So do this, my child, and save yourself,
for you have come into your neighbor’s power:
go, hurry, and plead with your neighbor.
⁴Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
⁵save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler. ⁶Go to the ant, you lazybones;
consider its ways, and be wise.
⁷Without having any chief
or officer or ruler,
⁸it prepares its food in summer,
and gathers its sustenance in harvest.
⁹How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
When will you rise from your sleep?
¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
¹¹and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want, like an armed warrior. ¹²A scoundrel and a villain
goes around with crooked speech,
¹³winking the eyes, shuffling the feet,
pointing the fingers,
¹⁴with perverted mind devising evil,
continually sowing discord;
¹⁵on such a one calamity will descend suddenly;
in a moment, damage beyond repair. ¹⁶There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
¹⁷haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
¹⁸a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to evil,
¹⁹a lying witness who testifies falsely,
and one who sows discord in a family. ²⁰My child, keep your father’s commandment,
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
²¹Bind them upon your heart always;
tie them around your neck.
²²When you walk, they will lead you;
when you lie down, they will watch over you;
and when you awake, they will talk with you.
²³For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
²⁴to preserve you from the wife of another,
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
²⁵Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
²⁶for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread,
but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.
²⁷Can fire be carried in the bosom
without burning one’s clothes?
²⁸Or can one walk on hot coals
without scorching the feet?
²⁹So is he who sleeps with his neighbor’s wife;
no one who touches her will go unpunished.
³⁰Thieves are not despised who steal only
to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry.
³¹Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold;
they will forfeit all the goods of their house.
³²But he who commits adultery has no sense;
he who does it destroys himself.
³³He will get wounds and dishonor,
and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
³⁴For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury,
and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge.
³⁵He will accept no compensation,
and refuses a bribe no matter how great. 7My child, keep my words
and store up my commandments with you;
²keep my commandments and live,
keep my teachings 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 insight your intimate friend,
⁵that they may keep you from the loose woman,
from the adulteress with her smooth words. ⁶For at the window of my house
I looked out through my lattice,
⁷and I saw among the simple ones,
I observed among the youths,
a young man without sense,
⁸passing along the street near her corner,
taking the road to her house
⁹in the twilight, in the evening,
at the time of night and darkness. ¹⁰Then a woman comes toward him,
decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart.
¹¹She is loud and wayward;
her feet do not stay at home;
¹²now in the street, now in the squares,
and at every corner she lies in wait.
¹³She seizes him and kisses him,
and with impudent face she says to him:
¹⁴“I had to offer sacrifices,
and today I have paid my vows;
¹⁵so now I have come out to meet you,
to seek you eagerly, and I have found you!
¹⁶I have decked my couch with coverings,
colored spreads of Egyptian linen;
¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
aloes, and cinnamon.
¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love until morning;
let us delight ourselves with love.
¹⁹For my husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey.
²⁰He took a bag of money with him;
he will not come home until full moon.” ²¹With much seductive speech she persuades him;
with her smooth talk she compels him.
²²Right away he follows her,
and goes like an ox to the slaughter,
or bounds like a stag toward the trap
²³until an arrow pierces its entrails.
He is like a bird rushing into a snare,
not knowing that it will cost him his life. ²⁴And now, my children, listen to me,
and be attentive to the words of my mouth.
²⁵Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways;
do not stray into her paths.
²⁶for many are those she has laid low,
and numerous are her victims.
²⁷Her house is the way to Sheol,
going down to the chambers of death.