Avoiding Immorality
(Leviticus 20:10–21; 1 Corinthians 5:1–8)

1My son, pay attention to my wisdom,

and to my understanding incline your ear,

2to keep discretion,

and that your lips may guard knowledge.

3For the lips of the forbidden woman† drip honey,

and smoother than oil is her palate;†

4but her end is bitter as wormwood,

sharp with mouths as a sword.

5Her feet go down to death;

her steps lay hold of sheol.†

6The path of life she does not weigh;

her tracks are unstable; she does not know it.

7And now, sons, listen to me,

and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.

8Keep your path far away from her,

and do not go near to the opening of her house,

9lest you give to others your splendor,

and your years to a cruel one;

10lest strangers be satisfied by your strength,

and your labors be in the house of a foreigner;

11and you groan at your end,

in the consumption of your skin and your body,

12and you say, “How I hated discipline,

and my heart spurned rebuke!

13And I have not listened to the voice of my instructors,

and I have not inclined my ear to those teaching me.

14Am I as a little from all evil,

in the midst of the assembly and the gathering.”

15Drink water from your own cistern

and flowing from your own well.

16Should your fountains be dispersed outside,

channels of water in broad places?

17Let them be for you, yourself alone,

and not for strangers with you.

18Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice with the wife of your youth.

19A loving doe and a graceful deer,

let her breasts satisfy you at all times—

may you wander† in her love continually!

20So why do you wander, my son, with a strange woman,

and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?†

21For the ways of man are in front of the eyes of YHWH,

and all his paths He weighs.†

22His own iniquities capture a wicked one,

and he is held with the cords of his sin.

23He shall die for lack of discipline,

and in the abundance of his folly he shall go astray.