5:1 My son, attend to my wisdom; Incline your ear to my understanding:
5:2 That you may preserve discretion, And that your lips may keep knowledge.
5:3 For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil:
5:4 But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword.
5:5 Her feet go down to death; Her steps take hold on Sheol;
5:6 If she does not find the level path of life: Her ways are unstable, [and] she will not know.
5:7 Now therefore, [my] sons, listen to me, And do not depart from the words of my mouth.
5:8 Remove your way far from her, And don't come near the door of her house;
5:9 Or else you will give your grandeur to others, And your years to the cruel;
5:10 Or else strangers will be filled with your strength, And your labors [be] in the house of an alien,
5:11 And you mourn at your latter end, When your flesh and your body are consumed,
5:12 And say, How I have hated instruction, And my heart despised reproof;
5:13 Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!
5:14 I was well-near in all evil In the midst of the assembly and congregation.
5:15 Drink waters out of your own cistern, And running waters out of your own well.
5:16 Should your springs be dispersed abroad, And streams of water in the streets?
5:17 Let them be for yourself alone, And not for strangers with you.
5:18 Let your fountain be blessed; And rejoice in the wife of your youth.
5:19 [As] a loving hind and a pleasant doe, Let her nipples immerse you at all times; And be ravished always with her love.
5:20 For why should you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
5:21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of Yahweh; And he makes level all his paths.
5:22 His own iniquities will take the wicked, And he will be held with the cords of his sin.
5:23 He will die for lack of instruction; And in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.