Proverbs 5 - Modern English Version

Wisdom of Fidelity

¹ My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,

² that you may regard discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge.

³ For the lips of an adulteress drip as honey, and her speech is smoother than oil,

⁴ but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵ Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold of Sheol.

⁶ She does not ponder the path of life; her ways are unstable, and she does not know it.

⁷ Listen to me now, my sons, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

⁸ Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house,

⁹ lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel,

¹⁰ lest strangers be filled with your wealth, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,

¹¹ and you mourn at the end of your life, when your flesh and your body are consumed,

¹² and you say, “How I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof!

¹³ I did not obey the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to those who instructed me.

¹⁴ I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”

¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern, and flowing water from your own well.

¹⁶ Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets?

¹⁷ Let them be only your own, and not for strangers with you.

¹⁸ Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth,

¹⁹ a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you always be enraptured by her love.

²⁰ Why should you, my son, be intoxicated by an adulteress, and embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?

²¹ For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths.

²² The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is caught in the cords of his sin.

²³ He will die for lack of discipline, and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.