1 My son, observe my words,
And lay up with you my commandments.
2 Keep my commandments and live,
and my teaching as the pupil of your eye.
3 Bind them upon your fingers;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Say to Wisdom, “You are my sister”;
call Understanding your friend —
5 shun the dissolute woman,
the stranger of slippery speech.
6 At the window of her house
she peers out through the lattice;
7 and, looking at the simpletons,
she detects a silly youth,
8 as he passes near the street corner.
Stepping the way to her house,
9 just in the evening twilight,
As the night is growing dark.
10 See! The woman comes out to meet him,
in a harlot's dress, all a-flutter.
11 Boisterous and brazen is she:
her feet are restless at home.
12 Now in street, now in square is she.
Lurking near every corner.
13 So she catches and kisses him,
and with impudent face she accosts him:
14 “I have ready a thanksgiving feast,
for today I have paid my vows;
15 and so I came out to meet you,
to seek you, and now I have found you, so
16 I have spread my couch with coverlets,
striped with Egyptian yarn.
17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
with cinnamon and with aloes.
18 Come; let us drink love till the morning,
and yield us to merry caresses.
19 For my husband is not at home;
he is far away on a journey.
20 He has taken a money-bag with him,
he will not come home till full moon.”
21 With her fair speech she beguiled him,
with her blandishing words she enticed him.
22 So he followed her bewitched,
like an ox that is brought to the slaughter,
like a dog that is led on a chain,
23 like a bird rushing into a net,
unaware that its life is at stake,
till an arrow pierces its liver.
24 And now, my son, listen to me.
Give heed to the words that I utter.
25 Let your heart not swerve to her ways,
and wander not in her paths;
26 for the dead she has cast down are many,
and many are those she has slain.
27 Her house is the road to Sheol,
straight down to the chambers of Death.