Proverbs 5

Revised Geneva Translation

5 My son, hearken to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my knowledge,

² that you may regard counsel and your lips observe knowledge.

³ For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb. And her mouth is more soft than oil.

⁴ But the end of her is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵ Her feet go down to death and her steps take hold on Hell.

⁶ She does not weigh the way of life. Her paths are moveable. You cannot know them.

⁷ Hear me now, therefore, O children, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

⁸ Keep your way far from her and do not come near the door of her house,

⁹ lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel;

¹⁰ lest the stranger should be filled with your strength and your labors be in the house of a stranger.

¹¹ And you mourn at your end (when you have consumed your flesh and your body)

¹² and say, “How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised correction;

¹³ “and have not obeyed the voice of those who taught me, nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me?!

¹⁴ “I was almost brought into all evil in the midst of the Congregation and assembly.”

¹⁵ Drink the water of your cistern, and of the rivers out of the midst of your own well.

¹⁶ Let your fountains flow forth, and the rivers of waters in the streets.

¹⁷ But let them be yours—and yours only—and not the strangers with you.

¹⁸ Let your fountain be blessed. And rejoice with the wife of your youth.

¹⁹ Let her be as the loving deer and pleasant roe. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Delight in her love continually.

²⁰ For why should you delight, my son, in a strange woman; or embrace the bosom of a stranger?

²¹ For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD. And He ponders all his paths.

²² His own iniquities shall take the wicked, himself, and he shall be seized with the cords of his own sin.

²³ He shall die for lack of instruction, and shall go astray through his great folly.