Proverbs 7

¹My son, keep my words.

Lay up my commandments within you.

²Keep my commandments and live!

Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.

³Bind them on your fingers.

Write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Tell wisdom, “You are my sister.”

Call understanding your relative,

⁵that they may keep you from the strange woman,

from the foreigner who flatters with her words.

⁶For at the window of my house,

I looked out through my lattice.

⁷I saw among the simple ones.

I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding,

⁸passing through the street near her corner,

he went the way to her house,

⁹in the twilight, in the evening of the day,

in the middle of the night and in the darkness.

¹⁰Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute,

and with crafty intent.

¹¹She is loud and defiant.

Her feet don’t stay in her house.

¹²Now she is in the streets, now in the squares,

and lurking at every corner.

¹³So she caught him, and kissed him.

With an impudent face she said to him:

¹⁴“Sacrifices of peace offerings are with me.

Today I have paid my vows.

¹⁵Therefore I came out to meet you,

to diligently seek your face,

and I have found you.

¹⁶I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry,

with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let’s take our fill of loving until the morning.

Let’s solace ourselves with loving.

¹⁹For my husband isn’t at home.

He has gone on a long journey.

²⁰He has taken a bag of money with him.

He will come home at the full moon.”

²¹With persuasive words, she led him astray.

With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him.

²²He followed her immediately,

as an ox goes to the slaughter,

as a fool stepping into a noose.

²³Until an arrow strikes through his liver,

as a bird hurries to the snare,

and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.

²⁴Now therefore, sons, listen to me.

Pay attention to the words of my mouth.

²⁵Don’t let your heart turn to her ways.

Don’t go astray in her paths,

²⁶for she has thrown down many wounded.

Yes, all her slain are a mighty army.

²⁷Her house is the way to Sheol,

going down to the rooms of death.