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- ¶ MY son, keep my words and hide my commandments within you.
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- Keep my commandments and live, and my law as the pupil of your eye.
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- Bind them about your neck;
write them upon the tablets of your heart.
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- Say to wisdom, You are my sister;
and to understanding, You are my counselor
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- That they may keep you from the strange woman, from the stranger that flatters with her words.
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- ¶ For from the window of her house and from the balcony she looked out,
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- And she beheld young men, she spied among the youths, and those who lacked understanding,
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- Passing through the street near the corner of her house,
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- In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night;
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- And, behold, there came out a woman with the attire of a harlot to meet one of them, a woman who fluttered the hearts of young men.
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- She is rebellious and gluttonous;
her feet do not abide in her house;
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- But she roams around outside, now in the streets, and now lying in wait at the corners.
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- So she caught him and kissed him, and, with an impudent face, said to him,
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- This day I have paid my vows, I have peace offerings with me;
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- Therefore I came out to meet you, for I have been waiting to see you, and now I have found you.
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- I have made my bed upon a carpet;
I have covered it with fine linen of Egypt.
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- I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
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- Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning;
let us embrace each other with passion.
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- For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey:
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- He has taken a bag of money with him, and it will be a long time before he comes home.
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- With much fair speech she misled him, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.
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- He went after her as a little child, as an ox that goes to the slaughter, and as a dog to be muzzled;
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- And as a stag whose liver is pierced with an arrow, as a bird hastens to the snare, and does not know that he goes to his death.
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- ¶ Now therefore, O my children, hearken to me, and attend to the words of my mouth.
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- Let not your heart incline to her ways, do not go astray in her paths.
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- For she has cast down many wounded;
yea, many mighty men have been slain by her.
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- The ways to her house are the ways to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.
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