Proverbs 5
Common English Bible
Avoid the mysterious woman
5 My son, pay attention to my wisdom.
Bend your ear to what I know,
2 so you might remain discreet,
and your lips might guard knowledge.
3 The lips of a mysterious woman drip honey,
and her tongue is smoother than oil,
4 but in the end she is bitter as gall,
sharp as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead to the grave.[a]
6 She doesn’t stay on the way of life.
Her paths wander, but she doesn’t know it.
7 Now sons, listen to me,
and don’t deviate from the words of my mouth.
8 Stay on a path that is far from her;
don’t approach the entrance to her house.
9 Otherwise, you will give your strength to others,
your years to a cruel person.
10 Otherwise, strangers will sap your strength,
and your hard work will end up in a foreigner’s house.
11 You will groan at the end
when your body and flesh are exhausted,
12 and you say, “How I hated instruction!
How my heart despised correction!
13 I didn’t listen to the voice of my instructor.
I didn’t obey my teacher.
14 I’m on the brink of utter ruin
in the assembled community.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
gushing water from your own well.
16 Should your fountains flood outside,
streams of water in the public squares?
17 They are yours alone,
not for you as well as strangers.
18 May your spring be blessed.
Rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 She is a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts intoxicate you all the time;
always be drunk on her love.
20 Why, my son, should you lose your senses with a mysterious woman
and embrace the breasts of a foreign female?
21 The Lord’s eyes watch over every person’s path,
observing all their ways.
22 The wicked will be caught by their own evil acts,
grabbed by the ropes of their own sin.
23 Those without instruction will die,
misled by their own stupidity.
Footnotes
- Proverbs 5:5 Heb Sheol
Proverbs 5
King James Version
5 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
10 Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings.
22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible