| Chapter 7 |
1 |
My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. |
2 |
Keep my commandments, and live; and my teaching, as the apple of thine eye. |
3 |
Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the tablet of thy heart. |
4 |
Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call intelligence thy kinswoman: |
5 |
that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger who flattereth with her words. |
6 |
For at the window of my house, I looked forth through my lattice, |
7 |
and I beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the sons, 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 of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness. |
10 |
And behold, there met him a woman in the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart. |
11 |
She is clamorous and unmanageable; her feet abide not in her house: |
12 |
now without, now in the broadways, -- and she lieth in wait at every corner. |
13 |
And she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, |
14 |
I have peace-offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows: |
15 |
therefore came I forth to meet thee, to seek earnestly thy face, and I have found thee. |
16 |
I have decked my bed with tapestry coverlets of variegated linen from Egypt; |
17 |
I have perfumed my couch with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. |
18 |
Come, let us revel in love until the morning, let us delight ourselves with loves. |
19 |
For the husband is not at home, he is gone a long journey; |
20 |
he hath taken the money-bag with him, he will come home on the day of the full moon. |
21 |
With her much enticement she beguiled him; with the smoothness of her lips she constrained him. |
22 |
He went after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, and as stocks serve for the correction of the fool; |
23 |
till an arrow strike through his liver: as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for its life. |
24 |
And now, ye sons, hearken unto me, and attend to the words of my mouth. |
25 |
Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths: |
26 |
for she hath cast down many wounded, and all slain by her were strong. |
27 |
Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death. |