- 1
- My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
- 2
- Keep my commandments, and live;
and my teaching, as the apple of thine eye.
- 3
- Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the tablet of thy heart.
- 4
- Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call intelligence [thy] kinswoman:
- 5
- that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger who flattereth with her words.
- 6
- For at the window of my house, I looked forth through my lattice,
- 7
- and I beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the sons, a young man void of understanding,
- 8
- passing through the street near her corner;
and he went the way to her house,
- 9
- in the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness.
- 10
- And behold, there met him a woman in the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart.
- 11
- She is clamorous and unmanageable;
her feet abide not in her house:
- 12
- now without, now in the broadways, — and she lieth in wait at every corner.
- 13
- And she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,
- 14
- I have peace-offerings with me;
this day have I paid my vows:
- 15
- therefore came I forth to meet thee, to seek earnestly thy face, and I have found thee.
- 16
- I have decked my bed with tapestry coverlets of variegated linen from Egypt;
- 17
- I have perfumed my couch with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
- 18
- Come, let us revel in love until the morning, let us delight ourselves with loves.
- 19
- For the husband is not at home, he is gone a long journey;
- 20
- he hath taken the money-bag with him, he will come home on the day of the full moon.
- 21
- With her much enticement she beguiled him;
with the smoothness of her lips she constrained him.
- 22
- He went after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, and as stocks [serve] for the correction of the fool;
- 23
- till an arrow strike through his liver: as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for its life.
- 24
- And now, ye sons, hearken unto me, and attend to the words of my mouth.
- 25
- Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths:
- 26
- for she hath cast down many wounded, and all slain by her were strong.
- 27
- Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.
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