Proverbs 7:1-20 ▼

1 My son, keep my words And treasure my commandments within you.

2 Keep my commandments and live, And my law as the apple of your eye.

3 Bind them on your fingers; Write them on the tablet of your heart.

4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” And call understanding your intimate friend;

5 In order to keep you from the strange woman, From the foreign woman who flatters with her words.

6 For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice,

7 And I saw among the simple, And discerned among the sons A young man lacking a heart of wisdom,

8 Passing through the street near her corner; And he strides along the way to her house,

9 In the twilight, in the evening of that day, In the middle of the night, and in the thick darkness.

10 And behold, a woman comes to meet him, Dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart.

11 She is boisterous and rebellious, Her feet do not dwell at home;

12 Stepping in the streets, stepping in the squares, And near every corner she lies in wait.

13 So she seizes him and kisses him And with a brazen face she says to him:

14 “The sacrifices of peace offerings are with me; Today I paid my vows.

15 Therefore I have come out to meet you, To seek your face earnestly, and I have found you.

16 I have spread my couch with coverings, With colored linens of Egypt.

17 I have sprinkled my bed With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

18 Come, then, let us drink our fill as lovers until morning; Let us delight ourselves with the pleasures of love.

19 For my husband is not at home, He has gone on a journey far away;

20 He took a bag of silver in his hand, On the day of the full moon he will come home.”