Proverbs 5

Honey on Her Lips, and Wormwood at the End

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5:1Son, attend to my wisdom,
and incline your ear to my words,

5:2so that you may guard good understanding.
I command you to heed the discernment of my lips.

5:3Do not attend to a base woman,
for honey drips from a prostitute’s lips;
for a time she oils your throat.

5:4Afterward, however, you will find it more bitter than gall
and sharper than a two-edged blade.

5:5For folly’s feet lead those who engage with her
down with death into Hades;
her tracks are not firmly set.

5:6For she does not travel life’s ways;
her tracks are slippery and not easy to recognize.

5:7Now therefore, son, listen to me,
and do not make my words ineffective.

5:8Put your way far from her;
do not approach the doors of her houses,

5:9so that you do not surrender your life to others
and your livelihood to the merciless,

5:10so that outsiders are not filled with your strength,
and your labors enter outsiders’ houses,

5:11and you come to regret it at the end,
when the flesh of your body is worn away,

5:12and say, “How I hated discipline!
My heart turned aside from rebukes.

5:13I did not listen to the voice of the one disciplining and teaching me,
nor incline my ear.

5:14I was nearly in every kind of evil
in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”

5:15Drink waters from your vessels
and from your spring wells.

5:16Do not let waters overflow for you from your spring;
but let your waters travel into your own squares.

5:17Let them belong to you alone,
and let no outsider share with you.

5:18Let your fountain of water be your own,
and share joy with the wife of your youth.

5:19Let a deer of affection and a colt of your graces keep company with you.
Let your own woman lead you and be with you at every time,
for as you move in the company of her affection, you will be one among many.

5:20Do not be much involved with another woman,
nor be held in the arms of one who is not your own.

5:21For a man’s ways are before God’s eyes,
and He watches all his tracks.

5:22Lawless acts hunt a man,
and each is bound tight by the cords of his own sins.

5:23He dies among the undisciplined;
from the abundance of his own life he was cast out
and perished through folly.

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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.