Chapter 5

  My son, attend to my wisdom, and incline thy ear to my prudence.  

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  That thou mayst keep thoughts, and thy lips may preserve instruction. Mind not the deceit of a woman.  

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  For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb dropping, and her throat is smoother than oil.  

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  But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword.  

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  Her feet go down into death, and her steps go in as far as hell.  

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  They walk not by the path of life, her steps are wandering, and unaccountable.  

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  Now therefore, my son, hear me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.  

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  Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the doors of her house.  

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  Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel.  

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  Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours be in another man's house,  

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  And thou mourn it the last, when thou shalt have spent thy flesh and thy body, and say:  

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  Why have I hated instruction, and my heart consented not to reproof,  

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  And have not heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not in- dined my ear to masters?  

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  I have almost been in all evil, in the midst of the church and of the congregation.  

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  Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well:  

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  Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters.  

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  Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee.  

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  Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth:  

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  Let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times; he thou delighted continually with her love.  

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  Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another ?  

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  The Lord beholdeth the ways of man, and considereth all his steps.  

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  His own iniquities catch the wicked, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his own sins.  

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  He shall die, because he hath not received instruction, and in the multitude of his folly he shall be deceived.  

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