Proverbs 5, side by side

¹My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,

¹My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:

²that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.

²That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

³Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,

³For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

⁴in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.

⁴But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to Sheol.

⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

⁶She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.

⁶Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

⁷So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.

⁷Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

⁸Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house,

⁸Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

⁹lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;

⁹Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

¹⁰lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.

¹⁰Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

¹¹At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,

¹¹And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

¹²and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!

¹²And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

¹³I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.

¹³And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

¹⁴I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”

¹⁴I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.

¹⁵Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

¹⁶Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?

¹⁶Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

¹⁷Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.

¹⁷Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.

¹⁸May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:

¹⁸Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

¹⁹A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.

¹⁹Let 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.

²⁰Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?

²⁰And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

²¹For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.

²¹For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

²²The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.

²²His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

²³He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.

²³He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.