Chapter 5

  My son! to my wisdom give attention, To mine understanding incline thine ear,  

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  To observe thoughtfulness, And knowledge do thy lips keep.  

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  For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And smoother than oil [is] her mouth,  

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  And her latter end [is] bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a sword [with] mouths.  

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  Her feet are going down to death, Sheol do her steps take hold of.  

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  The path of life -- lest thou ponder, Moved have her paths -- thou knowest not.  

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  And now, ye sons, hearken to me, And turn not from sayings of my mouth.  

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  Keep far from off her thy way, And come not near unto the opening of her house,  

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  Lest thou give to others thy honour, And thy years to the fierce,  

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  Lest strangers be filled [with] thy power, And thy labours in the house of a stranger,  

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  And thou hast howled in thy latter end, In the consumption of thy flesh and thy food,  

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  And hast said, 'How have I hated instruction, And reproof hath my heart despised,  

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  And I have not hearkened to the voice of my directors, And to my teachers have not inclined mine ear.  

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  As a little thing I have been all evil, In the midst of an assembly and a company.  

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  Drink waters out of thine own cistern, Even flowing ones out of thine own well.  

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  Let thy fountains be scattered abroad, In broad places rivulets of waters.  

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  Let them be to thee for thyself, And not to strangers with thee.  

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  Let thy fountain be blessed, And rejoice because of the wife of thy youth,  

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  A hind of loves, and a roe of grace! Let her loves satisfy thee at all times, In her love magnify thyself continually.  

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  And why dost thou magnify thyself, My son, with a stranger? And embrace the bosom of a strange woman?  

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  For over-against the eyes of Jehovah are the ways of each, And all his paths He is pondering.  

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  His own iniquities do capture the wicked, And with the ropes of his sin he is holden.  

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  He dieth without instruction, And in the abundance of his folly magnifieth himself!  

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