Warning Against the Adulteress

¹hMy son, keep my words

and htreasure up my commandments with you;

²ikeep my commandments and live;

keep my teaching as jthe apple of your eye;

³kbind them on your fingers;

kwrite them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”

and call insight your intimate friend,

⁵to keep you from lthe forbidden1 woman,

from lthe adulteress2 with her smooth words.

⁶For at mthe window of my house

I have looked out through my lattice,

⁷and I have seen among nthe simple,

I have perceived among the youths,

a young man olacking sense,

⁸passing along the street pnear her corner,

taking the road to her house

⁹in qthe twilight, in the evening,

at rthe time of night and darkness.

¹⁰And behold, the woman meets him,

sdressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.3

¹¹She is tloud and uwayward;

vher feet do not stay at home;

¹²now in the street, now in the market,

and wat every corner she xlies in wait.

¹³She seizes him and kisses him,

and with ybold face she says to him,

¹⁴“I had to zoffer sacrifices,4

and today I have apaid my vows;

¹⁵so now I have come out to meet you,

to seek you eagerly, and I have found you.

¹⁶I have spread my couch with bcoverings,

colored linens from cEgyptian linen;

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with dmyrrh,

aloes, and ecinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love till morning;

let us delight ourselves with love.

¹⁹For fmy husband is not at home;

he has gone on a long journey;

²⁰he took a bag of money with him;

at full moon he will come home.”

²¹With much seductive speech she persuades him;

with gher smooth talk she compels him.

²²All at once he follows her,

as an ox goes to the slaughter,

or as a stag is caught fast5

²³till an arrow pierces its liver;

as ha bird rushes into a snare;

he does not know that it will cost him his life.

²⁴And inow, O sons, listen to me,

and be attentive to the words of my mouth.

²⁵Let not your heart turn aside to her ways;

do not stray into her paths,

²⁶for many a victim has she laid low,

and all her slain are ja mighty throng.

²⁷Her house is kthe way to Sheol,

going down to the chambers of death.