NRSV Proverbs 5 Chapter
5:1
My child, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,
5:2
so that you may hold on to prudence, and your lips may guard knowledge.
5:3
For the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil;
5:4
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5:5
Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol.
5:6
She does not keep straight to the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.
5:7
And now, my child, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
5:8
Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house;
5:9
or you will give your honor to others, and your years to the merciless,
5:10
and strangers will take their fill of your wealth, and your labors will go to the house of an alien;
5:11
and at the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,
5:12
and you say, "Oh, how I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
5:13
I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.
5:14
Now I am at the point of utter ruin in the public assembly."
5:15
Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
5:16
Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
5:17
Let them be for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers.
5:18
Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
5:19
a lovely deer, a graceful doe. May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love.
5:20
Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
5:21
For human ways are under the eyes of the LORD, and he examines all their paths.
5:22
The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them, and they are caught in the toils of their sin.
5:23
They die for lack of discipline, and because of their great folly they are lost.