1 My child, be attentive to my wisdom, and to my understanding incline your ear;
2 [in order] to keep prudence, and knowledge will guard your lips.
3 For the lips of the strange woman will drip honey, and smoother than oil is her mouth.
4 But her end is bitter as the wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down [to] death; her steps take hold [of] Sheol.
6 She does not observe the path of life; her ways wander, [and] she does not know [it].
7 Now, O children, listen to me; do not depart from the sayings of my mouth.
8 Keep your paths far from her, and do not go near to the door of her house,
9 lest you give your honor to the others, and your years to the merciless,
10 lest strangers take [their] fill of your strength, and your labors [go] to the house of a foreigner,
11 and you groan at your end, when your flesh and body are consumed,
12 and say "How I hated discipline, and I despised reproof!"
13 and "I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, and I did not incline my ear to my instructors!
14 I was almost at utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation."
15 Drink water from your [own] cistern and flowing waters from inside your own well.
16 Shall your springs be scattered outward? In the streets, [shall there be] streams of water?
17 May they be yours alone, and not for strangers [who are] with you.
18 May your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 [She is] a deer of love and a doe of grace; may her breasts satisfy you {always}; by her love may you be intoxicated continually.
20 Why should you be intoxicated, my child, by a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
21 For before the eyes of Yahweh [are] {human ways}, and all his paths he examines.
22 His iniquities shall ensnare him, the evildoer, and in the vanity of his sin he shall be caught.
23 He shall die {for lack of} discipline, and in the greatness of his folly he shall be lost.