Proverbs - The Old Testament

¹ My child, keep my words, and treasure my precepts,

² keep my precepts and you will live, keep my teaching as the apple of your eye.

³ Bind these to your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴ Say to Wisdom, 'You are my sister!' Call Understanding your relation,

⁵ to save yourself from the woman that belongs to another, from the stranger, with her seductive words.

⁶ While I was at the window of my house, I was looking out through the lattice

⁷ and I saw, among the callow youths, I noticed among the lads, one boy who had no sense.

⁸ Going along the lane, near the corner where she lives, he reaches the path to her house,

⁹ at twilight when day is declining, at dead of night and in the dark.

¹⁰ And look, a woman is coming to meet him, dressed like a prostitute, false of heart.

¹¹ She is loud and brazen; her feet cannot rest at home.

¹² Once in the street, once in the square, she lurks at every corner.

¹³ She catches hold of him, she kisses him, the bold-faced creature says to him,

¹⁴ 'I had to offer a communion sacrifice, I have discharged my vows today;

¹⁵ that is why I came out to meet you, to look for you, and now I have found you.

¹⁶ I have spread coverlets over my divan, embroidered stuff, Egyptian material,

¹⁷ I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, with aloes and cinnamon.

¹⁸ Come on, we'll make love as much as we like, till morning. Let us enjoy the delights of love!

¹⁹ For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a very long journey,

²⁰ taking his moneybags with him; he will not be back till the moon is full.'

²¹ With her persistent coaxing she overcomes him, lures him on with her wheedling patter.

²² Forthwith he follows her, like an ox on its way to the slaughterhouse, like a madman on his way to the stocks,

²³ until an arrow pierces him to the liver, like the bird that dashes into the net without realising that its life is at stake.

²⁴ And now, son, listen to me, pay attention to the words I have to say:

²⁵ do not let your heart stray into her ways, or wander into her paths;

²⁶ she has done so many to death, and the strongest have all been her victims.

²⁷ Her house is the way to Sheol, the descent to the courts of death.