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4Listen, children, to a father’s instruction,
and be attentive, that you may gain insight;
²for I give you good precepts:
do not forsake my teaching.
³When I was a son with my father,
tender, and my mother’s favorite,
⁴he taught me, and said to me,
“Let your heart hold fast my words;
keep my commandments, and live.
⁵Get wisdom; get insight: do not forget, nor turn away
from the words of my mouth.
⁶Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
⁷The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever else you get, get insight.
⁸Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
⁹She will place on your head a fair garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.” ¹⁰Hear, my child, and accept my words,
that the years of your life may be many.
¹¹I have taught you the way of wisdom;
I have led you in the paths of uprightness.
¹²When you walk, your step will not be hampered;
and if you run, you will not stumble.
¹³Keep hold of instruction; do not let go;
guard her, for she is your life.
¹⁴Do not enter the path of the wicked,
and do not walk in the way of evildoers.
¹⁵Avoid it; do not go on it;
turn away from it and pass on.
¹⁶For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong;
they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble.
¹⁷For they eat the bread of wickedness
and drink the wine of violence.
¹⁸But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
¹⁹The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know what they stumble over.
²⁰My child, be attentive to my words;
incline your ear to my sayings.
²¹Do not let them escape from your sight;
keep them within your heart.
²²For they are life to those who find them,
and healing to all their flesh.
²³Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.
²⁴Put away from you crooked speech,
and put devious talk far from you.
²⁵Let your eyes look directly forward,
and your gaze be straight before you.
²⁶Keep straight the path of your feet,
and all your ways will be sure.
²⁷Do not swerve to the right or to the left;
turn your foot away from evil. 5My child, be attentive to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
²so that you may hold on to prudence,
and your lips may guard knowledge.
³For the lips of a loose woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
⁴but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
⁵Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to Sheol.
⁶She does not keep straight to the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it. ⁷And now, my child, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
⁸Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house;
⁹or you will give your honor to others,
and your years to the merciless,
¹⁰and strangers will take their fill of your wealth,
and your labors will go to the house of an alien;
¹¹and at the end of your life you will groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
¹²and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof !
¹³I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
¹⁴Now I am at the point of utter ruin
in the public assembly.” ¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
¹⁶Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
¹⁷Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for sharing with strangers.
¹⁸Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
¹⁹a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
May her breasts satisfy you at all times;
may you be intoxicated always by her love.
²⁰Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
²¹For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord,
and he examines all their paths.
²²The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them,
and they are caught in the toils of their sin.
²³They die for lack of discipline,
and because of their great folly they are lost.
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.