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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.