잠언 5

The bitter end of adultery

¹My son, listen closely to the wisdom I have; \q bend your ear to what I understand, ²so that you keep your foresight \q and your lips guard what you know. ³For honey drips from the lips of the woman who is not yours, \q and her talk is smoother than olive oil, ⁴but what she leaves you with is bitter as wormwood, \q and it cuts like a two-edged sword. ⁵Her feet go down toward death; \q her steps make straight for Sheol. ⁶She does not consider the road to life; \q her ways drift, and she is unaware of it.^a

Keep away from her door

⁷So now, sons, hear me out, \q and do not stray from the words I speak. ⁸Keep well away from her, \q and do not even come near her front door, ⁹or you will hand over your strength to others \q and your years to someone without mercy, ¹⁰and strangers will feed on your wealth, \q and what you worked hard for will end up in an outsider’s house, ¹¹and when it is all over you will groan, \q your body wasted and your flesh used up, ¹²and you will say, “How I hated being corrected! \q How my heart despised every warning! ¹³I paid no attention to what my teachers said; \q I would not lend an ear to those who taught me. ¹⁴I came close to complete ruin, \q there in front of the whole assembled community.” ¹⁵Draw your water from your own cistern, \q the fresh streams from inside your own well. ¹⁶Why let your springs run out into the street, \q and your streams flow through the town squares?^{b 17}Keep them for yourself alone, \q with no strangers drinking beside you. ¹⁸May your spring be blessed; \q find your joy in the woman you married when you were young, ¹⁹a lovely doe, a graceful mountain goat. \q Let her breasts content you at every season, \q and let her love carry you away always. ²⁰Why, my son, let yourself be carried away by a woman who is not yours, \q or take an outsider in your arms? ²¹For everything a person does is in plain view of the LORD, \q and he weighs every path they take. ²²Their own wrongdoing will catch the wicked, \q and the ropes of their sin will tie them up. ²³Such people die for lack of discipline, \q carried away by their great folly.