2.0 KiB
Warning Against Adultery
Chapter 5
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My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,
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that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.
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For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,
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but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
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Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;
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she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.
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And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
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Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,
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lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless,
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lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
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and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,
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and you say, "How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
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I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.
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I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation."
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Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
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Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
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Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.
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Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
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a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.
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Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
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For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.
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The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
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He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.