Proverbs 7

¹ My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands.

² Keep my commands and live, my teaching as the apple of your eye;

³ Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴ Say to Wisdom, "You are my sister!" call Understanding, "Friend!"

⁵ That they may keep you from another's wife, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

⁶ For at the window of my house, through my lattice I looked out--

⁷ And I saw among the simple ones, I observed among the young men, a youth with no sense,

⁸ Going along the street near the corner, then walking in the direction of her house--

⁹ In the twilight, at dusk of day, at the time of the dark of night.

¹⁰ And lo! the woman comes to meet him, robed like a harlot, with secret designs--

¹¹ She is fickle and unruly, in her home her feet cannot rest;

¹² Now she is in the streets, now in the open squares, and at every corner she lurks in ambush--

¹³ When she seizes him, she kisses him, and with an impudent look says to him:

¹⁴ "I owed peace offerings, and today I have fulfilled my vows;

¹⁵ So I came out to meet you, to look for you, and I have found you!

¹⁶ With coverlets I have spread my couch, with brocaded cloths of Egyptian linen;

¹⁷ I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, with aloes, and with cinnamon.

¹⁸ "Come, let us drink our fill of love, until morning, let us feast on love!

¹⁹ For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey;

²⁰ A bag of money he took with him, not till the full moon will he return home."

²¹ She wins him over by her repeated urging, with her smooth lips she leads him astray;

²² He follows her stupidly, like an ox that is led to slaughter; Like a stag that minces toward the net,

²³ till an arrow pierces its liver; Like a bird that rushes into a snare, unaware that its life is at stake.

²⁴ So now, O children, listen to me, be attentive to the words of my mouth!

²⁵ Let not your heart turn to her ways, go not astray in her paths;

²⁶ For many are those she has struck down dead, numerous, those she has slain.

²⁷ Her house is made up of ways to the nether world, leading down into the chambers of death.