Study

Warning against Impurity and Infidelity

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My child, be attentive to my wisdom;

incline your ear to my understanding,

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so that you may hold on to prudence,

and your lips may guard knowledge.

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For the lips of a loose woman drip honey,

and her speech is smoother than oil;

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but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword.

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Her feet go down to death;

her steps follow the path to Sheol.

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She does not keep straight to the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.

 

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And now, my child, listen to me,

and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

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Keep your way far from her,

and do not go near the door of her house;

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or you will give your honor to others,

and your years to the merciless,

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and strangers will take their fill of your wealth,

and your labors will go to the house of an alien;

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and at the end of your life you will groan,

when your flesh and body are consumed,

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and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof!

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I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my instructors.

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Now I am at the point of utter ruin

in the public assembly.”

 

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Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well.

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Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets?

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Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for sharing with strangers.

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Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

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a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

May her breasts satisfy you at all times;

may you be intoxicated always by her love.

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Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

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For human ways are under the eyes of the L ord,

and he examines all their paths.

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The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them,

and they are caught in the toils of their sin.

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They die for lack of discipline,

and because of their great folly they are lost.