1 My son, keep my words and remain faithful to my com mands.
2 Hold fast to my instruction and you will have life; treasure my teachings as the apple of your eye.
3 Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablets of your heart.
4 Let wisdom be your sister and knowledge your friend,
5 so that you will be saved from the adulterous woman, from the stranger with her enticing words.
6 From my window I was looking out through the lattice and
7 I saw among the young men, an inexperienced youth
8 who walked along the road near her corner, towards the path to her house.
9 It was dusk, daylight was fading – the time of darkness and shadow.
10 And look! Out comes this woman to meet him, dressed like a prostitute, covered with a veil.
11 She is brazen and shameless, un able to remain in the house.
12 Now at the corner, now in the square, she is on the lookout.
13 She throws herself at him, kisses him and confidently says,
14 “I have to offer sacrifices and terminate my vows; because of this
15 I came out to meet you. I sought and found you.
16 I have spread on my bed quilts and fine Egyptian sheets and
17 sprinkled it with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.
18 Come, let us abandon ourselves to pleasure and drink our fill of love all night,
19 for my husband is not at home but away on a long journey.
20 He has taken his moneybags and will not return before the full moon.”
21 She led him astray with such smooth and seductive words.
22 At once he followed her, as an ox led to slaughter or a deer caught in a snare
23 until its liver is pierced by an arrow; as a bird springs at the snare unaware that its life is at stake.
24 Now then, my sons, listen and pay attention to my words.
25 Do not be led astray or lose yourself on her paths.
26 For she has brought many to their death and the strongest were all her victims.
27 Her house leads to hell and death.