Chapter 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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.  

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

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

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

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