1. My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
2. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
3. Bind them upon thy fingers; write them upon the tablet of thine heart.
4. Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman:
5. That they may keep thee from the woman belonging to someone else, from the stranger who flatters with her words.
6. For at the window of my house I looked through my casement
7. and beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,
8. passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house,
9. in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night;
10. and, behold, a woman met him with the attire of a harlot, and subtil of heart.
11. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet do not abide in her house:
12. Now without, now in the streets, she lies in wait at every corner.)
13. So she caught him and kissed him and with an impudent face said unto him,
14. I had promised sacrifices of peace; today I have payed my vows.
15. Therefore I came forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
16. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.
17. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning; let us solace ourselves with loves.
19. For the husband is not at home; he is gone a long journey:
20. He has taken a bag of money with him and will come home at the appointed feast day.
21. With her much fair speech she caused him to yield; with the flattering of her lips she persuaded him.
22. He went after her straightway, as an ox goes to the slaughter or as a fool to the correction of the stocks,
23. until the arrow pierces through his liver. He is as a bird struggling in the snare and not knowing that it is against his own life.
24. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye sons, and attend to the words of my mouth.
25. Let not thine heart decline to her ways; do not go astray in her paths.
26. For she has caused many to fall down dead; yea, all the strong men have been slain by her.
27. Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.