1 My son, keep my words And treasure my commandments within you.
2 Keep my commandments and live, And my teaching 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 That they may keep you from an adulteress, From the foreigner 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 naive, [And] discerned among the youths A young man lacking sense,
8 Passing through the street near her corner; And he takes the way to her house,
9 In the twilight, in the evening, In the middle of the night and [in] the 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 remain at home;
12 [She is] now in the streets, now in the squares, And lurks by every corner.
13 So she seizes him and kisses him And with a brazen face she says to him:
14 |I was due to offer peace offerings; Today I have paid my vows.
15 |Therefore I have come out to meet you, To seek your presence 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, let us drink our fill of love until morning; Let us delight ourselves with caresses.
19 |For my husband is not at home, He has gone on a long journey;
20 He has taken a bag of money with him, At the full moon he will come home.|
21 With her many persuasions she entices him; With her flattering lips she seduces him.
22 Suddenly he follows her As an ox goes to the slaughter, Or as [one in] fetters to the discipline of a fool,
23 Until an arrow pierces through his liver; As a bird hastens to the snare, So he does not know that it [will cost him] his life.
