Warnings about the Adulteress

1My son, keep my words

and treasure my commands within you.

2Guard my commands and live,

and my instruction like the pupil† of your eyes.

3Bind them on your fingers;

write them on the tablet of your heart.

4Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”

and call out to understanding, “Kinsman,”

5to guard you from the strange woman,

from a foreign woman who has made smooth her words.

6For at the window of my house

I have looked through my lattice,

7and I have looked among the simple,

and discerned among the sons

a young man lacking heart,

8passing by on the street near her corner,

and the way of her house he steps in—

9in the twilight, in the evening of the day,

in the pupil of night and darkness.

10And behold, a woman to meet him,

in the garment of a prostitute and guarded of heart.

11She is roaring and rebellious;

in her house her feet do not dwell.

12Once in the street, once in the open squares,

and beside every corner she lies in wait.

13And she laid hold on him and kissed him;

she has hardened her face and said to him:

14“Sacrifices of peace offerings are by me;

this day I have paid my vows;

15upon thus I have come out to meet you,

to earnestly seek your face, and I have found you!

16With coverings I have spread my couch,

with colored linen of Egypt.

17I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh,

aloes, and cinnamon.

18Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning;

let us delight ourselves with loves!

19For the husband is not in his house;

he has gone far away on a road.

20A bag of silver he has taken with him;

on the day of the full moon he will enter his house.”

21She turns him aside with the abundance of her speech;

with the smoothness of her lips she compels him.

22Going after her suddenly,

he goes in like an ox to the slaughter,

like a deer bounding into a trap,†

23until an arrow splits his liver,

like the hurrying of a bird to the snare,

and he did not know that it was for his soul!

24And now, sons, listen to me,

and attend to the words of my mouth.

25Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways,

do not stray into her paths.

26For many wounded ones she has made fall;

and numerous are all her slain ones.

27Her house is the way to Sheol,

going down to the chambers of death.