The Dangers of Folly

¹My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight, ²that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. ³Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil, ⁴in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword. ⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to Sheol. ⁶She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable. ⁷So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth. ⁸Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house, ⁹lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel; ¹⁰lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner. ¹¹At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent, ¹²and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! ¹³I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors. ¹⁴I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.” ¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well. ¹⁶Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? ¹⁷Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. ¹⁸May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth: ¹⁹A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever. ²⁰Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger? ²¹For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths. ²²The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him. ²³He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly. ¹My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have struck hands in pledge with a stranger, ²if you have been trapped by the words of your lips, ensnared by the words of your mouth, ³then do this, my son, to free yourself, for you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands: Go, humble yourself, and press your plea with your neighbor. ⁴Allow no sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids. ⁵Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler. ⁶Walk in the manner of the ant, O slacker; observe its ways and become wise. ⁷Without a commander, without an overseer or ruler,