Avoid Immorality

(Leviticus 20:10-21; 1 Corinthians 5:1-8)

1My son, attend to my wisdom, and incline thy ear to my prudence.

2That thou mayst keep thoughts, and thy lips may preserve instruction. Mind not the deceit of a woman.

3For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb dropping, and her throat is smoother than oil.

4But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword.

5Her feet go down into death, and her steps go in as far as hell.

6They walk not by the path of life, her steps are wandering, and unaccountable.

7Now therefore, my son, hear me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

8Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the doors of her house.

9Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel.

10Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours be in another man's house,

11And thou mourn it the last, when thou shalt have spent thy flesh and thy body, and say:

12Why have I hated instruction, and my heart consented not to reproof,

13And have not heard the voice of them that taught me, and have not in- dined my ear to masters?

14I have almost been in all evil, in the midst of the church and of the congregation.

15Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well:

16Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters.

17Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee.

18Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth:

19Let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times; he thou delighted continually with her love.

20Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another ?

21The Lord beholdeth the ways of man, and considereth all his steps.

22His own iniquities catch the wicked, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his own sins.

23He shall die, because he hath not received instruction, and in the multitude of his folly he shall be deceived.