Proverbs 5

¹My son, attend to my wisdom, and to my prudence incline thine ear,

²that thou mayst keep cogitations, and thy lips preserve discipline.

³Attend not to the deceit of a woman: for the lips of an harlot are as a honey comb distilling, and her throat neater than oil.

⁴But her later ends are bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down into death, and her steps penetrate unto hell.

⁶They walk not by the path of life, her steps are wandering, and unsearchable.

⁷Now therefore my son hear me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

⁸Make thy way far from her, and approach not to the doors of her house.

⁹Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel.

¹⁰Lest perhaps strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours be in another man's house,

¹¹and thou mourn in the end, when thou shalt have spent thy flesh and thy body, and say:

¹²Why have I detested discipline, and my heart consented not to reprehensions,

¹³nor I heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not inclined mine ear to masters?

¹⁴I have almost been in all evil, in the midst of the Church and of the synagogue.

¹⁵Drink water of thine own cistern, and the streams of thy well:

¹⁶Let thy fountains be derived abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters,

¹⁷Have them alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee.

¹⁸Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the woman of thy youth:

¹⁹a hind most dear, and a most grateful fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all time, in her love be thou delighted continually.

²⁰Why art thou seduced my son of a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another?

²¹Our Lord beholdeth the ways of man, and considereth all his steps.

²²His own iniquities take the impious, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his sins.

²³He shall die because he hath not had discipline, and in the multitude of his folly he shall be deceived.