Proverbs 5

Avoid Seduction

1My son, pay attention to my wisdom; listen closely to my understanding2

3so that you may maintain discretion and your lips safeguard knowledge.4

5Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her words are smoother than oil,6

7in the end she’s as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a double-edged sword.8

9Her feet go down to death; her steps head straight for Sheol.10

11She doesn’t consider the path of life; she doesn’t know that her ways are unstable.12

13So now, sons, listen to me, and don’t turn away from the words from my mouth.14

15Keep your way far from her. Don’t go near the door of her house.16

17Otherwise, you will give up your vitality to others and your years to someone cruel;18

19strangers will drain your resources, and your hard-earned pay will end up in a foreigner’s house.20

21At the end of your life, you will lament when your physical body has been consumed,22

23and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and how my heart despised correction.24

25I didn’t obey my teachers or listen closely to my instructors.26

27I am on the verge of complete ruin before the entire community.”28

Enjoy Marriage

29Drink water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well.30

31Should your springs flow in the streets, streams in the public squares?32

33They should be for you alone and not for you to share with strangers.34

35Let your fountain be blessed, and take pleasure in the wife of your youth.36

37A loving deer, a graceful doe — let her breasts always satisfy you; be lost in her love forever.38

39Why, my son, would you lose yourself with a forbidden woman or embrace a wayward woman?40

41For a man’s ways are before the Lord’s eyes, and he considers all his paths.42

43A wicked man’s iniquities will trap him; he will become tangled in the ropes of his own sin.44

45He will die because there is no discipline, and be lost because of his great stupidity.46