The Wrong and Folly of Impurity

The Deadly Power of an Evil Woman

5 My son, listen to wisdom,

bend your ear to understanding;

2 so that discretion may watch over you,

and that knowledge may preserve you.

3 For the lips of the harlot drop honey,

her mouth is smoother than oil;

4 but at last she is bitter as wormwood,

and sharp as a two-edged sword.

5 Her feet go down to Death;

her steps lead straight into Sheol.

6 No smooth way of life does she walk;

her paths wander – she doesn’t know where.

7 And now, my son, listen to me;

Do not turn from the words that I speak.

8 Move far away from her.

Do not go near the door of her house;

9 or you might give your wealth to others,

your years to the implacable,

10 and so strangers enjoy your substance,

and a family of foreigners your toil;

11 and thus at the last you groan,

when body and flesh are consumed:

12 ‘Why did I hate instruction,

and spurn reproof in my heart?

13 Why did I not listen to my teachers,

nor bent to instructors mine ear?

14 All but utterly was I undone

in the congregation assembled.’

Exhortation to Fidelity

15 Drink water from your own cistern,

running water from your own well.

16 Do not let your springs be scattered abroad,

on the streets your streams of water.

17 Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers beside you.

18 Let your fountain be your own,

take joy from the wife of your youth –

19 lovely hind and graceful doe –

let her breasts make you happy at all times.

be ravished with her love forever.

20 For why be ravished by a stranger,

and a foreigners’s bosom embrace?

21 For the ways of a man are before the Lord’s eyes,

and all his paths he weighs.

22 His iniquities will snare him,

enmeshed in the toils of his sin.

23 He will die for lack of instruction

and perish for his vast folly.

Warning against the Adulteress

20 Observe, my child, the commands of your father,

do not abandon your mother’s instruction.

21 Bind them onto your heart forever;

hang them round about your neck.

22 When you walk, Wisdom will guide you;

when you lie down, she will watch you;

when you wake up, she will talk with you.

23 For precept illumines, instruction enlightens,

and reproof that disciplines leads to life,

24 Preserving you safe from the wife of another,

from the slippery tongue of the stranger.

25 Do not long in your heart for her beauty.

Do not be caught by her eyes.

26 For, while harlotry costs but a morsel of bread,

’Tis the precious life the adulteress hunts.

27 Can a man take fire in his bosom

without his clothes being burned?

28 Or on glowing coals can he walk

without his feet being scorched?

29 So with him that approaches his neighbour’s wife:

no one that touches her ever may go unpunished.

30 Do people not despise a thief,

When he steals even to satisfy hunger?

31 When caught, he must pay seven-fold.

And give all that his house contains.

32 But the adulterer is witless:

he destroyes himself by his doings.

33 For stripes and disgrace will be his,

And a shame that will never be blotted.

34 For jealousy maddens a man;

in the day of revenge he is pitiless.

35 He will accept no ransom,

nor will gifts in profusion content him.

Another Warning

7 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.