1. My son, listen to my wisdom. Turn your ear to my understanding.
2. So you may know what is good thinking, and your lips may keep much learning.
3. For the lips of a strange woman are as sweet as honey. Her talk is as smooth as oil.
4. But in the end she is as bitter tasting as wormwood, and as sharp as a sword that cuts both ways.
5. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold of hell.
6. She does not think about the path of life. Her ways go this way and that, and she does not know it.
7. Now then, my sons, listen to me. Do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
8. Keep far away from her. Do not go near the door of her house.
9. If you do, you would give your strength to others, and your years to those without loving-kindness.
10. Strangers would be filled with your strength, and the fruits of your work would go to a strange house.
11. You would cry inside yourself when your end comes, when your flesh and body are wasted away.
12. You would say, "How I have hated teaching! My heart hated strong words!
13. I have not listened to the voice of my teachers. I have not turned my ear to those who would teach me.
14. Now I have a bad name in the meeting place of the people."
15. Drink water from your own pool, flowing water from your own well.
16. Should the waters from your well flow away, rivers of water in the streets?
17. Let them be yours alone, and not for strangers with you.
18. Let your well be honored, and be happy with the wife you married when you were young.
19. Let her be like a loving, female deer. Let her breasts please you at all times. Be filled with great joy always because of her love.
20. My son, why should you be carried away with a sinful woman and fall into the arms of a strange woman?
21. For the ways of a man are seen by the eyes of the Lord, and He watches all his paths.
22. His own sins will trap the sinful. He will be held with the ropes of his sin.
23. He will die for want of teaching, and will go the wrong way because of the greatness of his foolish ways.