| 1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: | 1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom, listen careful y to what I know; |
| 2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. | 2 so that you may preserve discretion and your lips may guard knowledge. Take no notice of a loose-living woman, |
| 3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: | 3 for the lips of the adulteress drip with honey, her palate is more unctuous than oil, |
| 4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. | 4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. |
| 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. | 5 Her feet go down to death, Sheol the goal of her steps; |
| 6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. | 6 far from fol owing the path of life, her course is uncertain and she does not know it. |
| 7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. | 7 And now, son, listen to me, never deviate from what I say: |
| 8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: | 8 set your course as far from her as possible, go nowhere near the door of her house, |
| 9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: | 9 or she wil hand over your honour to others, the years of your life to a man without pity, |
| 10 Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; | 10 and strangers wil batten on your property, and your produce go to the house of a stranger, |
| 11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, | 11 and, at your ending, your body and flesh having been consumed, you wil groan |
| 12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; | 12 and exclaim, 'Alas, I hated discipline, my heart spurned al correction; |
| 13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! | 13 I would not attend to the voice of my masters, I would not listen to those who tried to teach me. |
| 14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. | 14 Now I have come to nearly every kind of misery, in the assembly and in the community.' |
| 15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. | 15 Drink the water from your own storage-well, fresh water from your own spring. |
| 16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. | 16 Even if your fountains overflow outside, your streams of water in the public squares: |
| 17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. | 17 let them be for you alone, and not for strangers with you. |
| 18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. | 18 May your fountain-head be blessed! Find joy with the wife you married in your youth, |
| 19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. | 19 fair as a hind, graceful as a fawn: hers the breasts that ever fill you with delight, hers the love that everholds you captive. |
| 20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? | 20 Why be seduced, my son, by someone else's wife, and fondle the breast of a woman who belongs toanother? |
| 21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. | 21 For the eyes of Yahweh observe human ways, and survey al human paths. |
| 22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. | 22 The wicked is snared in his own misdeeds, is caught in the meshes of his own sin. |
| 23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. | 23 For want of discipline, he dies, led astray by his own excessive folly. |