Proverbs 5

1 “My son, pay attention to my wisdom and incline your ear to my words,

2 so that you may preserve good reflection. I command you with the perception of my lips.

3 Do not pay attention to a worthless woman. Honey drips from the lips of a prostitute, who pleases your throat for a time,

4 but afterward you will find her more bitter than gall and sharper than a double-edged sword.

5 The feet of foolishness lead those who deal with her down with death into Hades, and her footsteps have no firm support.

6 She does not travel the roads of life. Her tracks are slippery and hard to recognize.

7 Now then, my son, listen to me, and do not make my words void.

8 Keep your road far from her; do not approach the doors of her house,

9 so that you do not surrender your life to others and your livelihood to the merciless,

10 so that strangers do not become filled with your strength and your labors enter the houses of strangers.

11 Then you would regret it in the end, when the flesh of your body is worn away,

12 and you would say, ‘How I hated instruction, and how my heart turned away from correction!

13 I did not listen to the voice of the one who instructed and taught me, nor did I incline my ear.

14 I almost fell into every evil in the midst of the assembly and gathering.’

15 Drink water from your own containers and from your own spring-fed wells.

16 Do not let the water from your spring overflow away from you, but let your waters move through your own streets.

17 Let them belong to you alone, and let no stranger share them with you.

18 Let your water spring be your own, and rejoice together with the wife of your youth.

19 Let your loving deer and graceful colt keep company with you. Let her who is your own lead you, and let her be with you at all times; surrounded by her love, you will flourish greatly.

20 Do not give yourself freely to a woman who belongs to another, and do not be held in the arms of a woman who is not your own.

21 For a man’s ways are before God’s eyes, and he watches all the man’s tracks.

22 Acts of lawbreaking ensnare a man, and each person is bound tightly by the cords of his own sins.

23 Such a man dies among the uninstructed. He is cast away from the abundance of his livelihood and perishes through foolishness.”