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5:1  My son, be attentive to my Wisdom [godly Wisdom learned by actual and costly experience], and incline your ear to my understanding [of what is becoming and prudent for you],
5:2  That you may exercise proper discrimination and discretion and your lips may guard and keep knowledge and the wise answer [to temptation].
5:3  For the lips of a loose woman drip honey as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil;
5:4  But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged and devouring sword.
5:5  Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of Sheol (Hades, the place of the dead).
5:6  She loses sight of and walks not in the path of life; her ways wind about aimlessly, and you cannot know them.
5:7  Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
5:8  Let your way in life be far from her, and come not near the door of her house [avoid the very scenes of temptation],
5:9  Lest you give your honor to others and your years to those without mercy,
5:10  Lest strangers [and false teachings] take their fill of your strength and wealth and your labors go to the house of an alien [from God]—
5:11  And you groan and mourn when your end comes, when your flesh and body are consumed,
5:12  And you say, How I hated instruction and discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
5:13  I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers nor submitted and consented to those who instructed me.
5:14  [The extent and boldness of] my sin involved almost all evil [in the estimation] of the congregation and the community.
5:15  Drink waters out of your own cistern [of a pure marriage relationship], and fresh running waters out of your own well.
5:16  Should your offspring be dispersed abroad as water brooks in the streets?
5:17  [Confine yourself to your own wife] let your children be for you alone, and not the children of strangers with you.
5:18  Let your fountain [of human life] be blessed [with the rewards of fidelity], and rejoice in the wife of your youth.
5:19  Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant doe [tender, gentle, attractive]—let her bosom satisfy you at all times, and always be transported with delight in her love.
5:20  Why should you, my son, be infatuated with a loose woman, embrace the bosom of an outsider, and go astray?
5:21  For the ways of man are directly before the eyes of the Lord, and He [Who would have us live soberly, chastely, and godly] carefully weighs all man’s goings.
5:22  His own iniquities shall ensnare the wicked man, and he shall be held with the cords of his sin.
5:23  He will die for lack of discipline and instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray and be lost.