Warning against Adultery
1 My child, pay attention and listen to my wisdom and insight. 2 Then you will know how to behave properly, and your words will show that you have knowledge. 3 The lips of another man's wife may be as sweet as honey and her kisses as smooth as olive oil, 4 but when it is all over, she leaves you nothing but bitterness and pain. 5 She will take you down to the world of the dead; the road she walks is the road to death. 6 She does not stay on the road to life; but wanders off, and does not realize what is happening.
7 Now listen to me, sons, and never forget what I am saying. 8 Keep away from such a woman! Don't even go near her door! 9 If you do, others will gain the respect that you once had, and you will die young at the hands of merciless people. 10 Yes, strangers will take all your wealth, and what you have worked for will belong to someone else. 11 You will lie groaning on your deathbed, your flesh and muscles being eaten away, 12 and you will say, “Why would I never learn? Why would I never let anyone correct me? 13 I wouldn't listen to my teachers. I paid no attention to them. 14 And suddenly I found myself publicly disgraced.”
15 Be faithful to your own wife and give your love to her alone. 16 Children that you have by other women will do you no good. 17 Your children should grow up to help you, not strangers. 18 So be happy with your wife and find your joy with the woman you married— 19 pretty and graceful as a deer. Let her charms keep you happy; let her surround you with her love. 20 Son, why should you give your love to another woman? Why should you prefer the charms of another man's wife? 21 The Lord sees everything you do. Wherever you go, he is watching. 22 The sins of the wicked are a trap. They get caught in the net of their own sin. 23 They die because they have no self-control. Their utter stupidity will send them to their graves.
1 My sonne, hearken vnto my wisedome, and incline thine eare vnto my knowledge. 2 That thou maiest regarde counsell, and thy lippes obserue knowledge. 3 For the lippes of a strange woman drop as an honie combe, and her mouth is more soft then oyle. 4 But the end of her is bitter as wormewood, and sharpe as a two edged sworde. 5 Her feete goe downe to death, and her steps take holde on hell. 6 She weigheth not the way of life: her paths are moueable: thou canst not knowe them. 7 Heare yee me nowe therefore, O children, and depart not from the wordes of my mouth. 8 Keepe thy way farre from her, and come not neere the doore of her house, 9 Least thou giue thine honor vnto others, and thy yeeres to the cruell: 10 Least the stranger should be silled with thy strength, and thy labours bee in the house of a stranger, 11 And thou mourne at thine end, (when thou hast consumed thy flesh and thy bodie) 12 And say, How haue I hated instruction, and mine heart despised correction! 13 And haue not obeied the voyce of them that taught mee, nor enclined mine eare to them that instructed me! 14 I was almost brought into all euil in ye mids of the Congregation and assemblie. 15 Drinke the water of thy cisterne, and of the riuers out of the middes of thine owne well. 16 Let thy fountaines flow foorth, and the riuers of waters in the streetes. 17 But let them bee thine, euen thine onely, and not the strangers with thee. 18 Let thy fountaine be blessed, and reioyce with the wife of thy youth. 19 Let her be as the louing hinde and pleasant roe: let her brests satisfie thee at all times, and delite in her loue continually. 20 For why shouldest thou delite, my sonne, in a strange woman, or embrace the bosome of a stranger? 21 For the waies of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his pathes. 22 His owne iniquities shall take the wicked himselfe, and he shall be holden with the cordes of his owne sinne. 23 Hee shall die for fault of instruction, and shall goe astray through his great follie.