1 My son, keep my words and treasure my mitzvot within you.
2 Keep my mitzvot and live, 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 relative.
5 They will keep you from a seducing woman, from the foreign woman with her seductive speech.
6 For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice.
7 I saw among the naïve, I noticed among the youth, a young man lacking understanding,
8 crossing the street near her corner, walking in the direction of her house,
9 in the twilight of the evening, in the darkest hours of the night.
10 All of a sudden, a woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute and with a cunning heart.
11 She is loud and defiant. Her feet never stay at home—
12 now in the streets, now in the squares, at every corner she lurks.
13 So she grabs him and kisses him and with a brazen face says to him:
14 “I had to sacrifice fellowship offerings; today I paid my vow.
15 So I’ve come out to meet you, to seek your presence eagerly— and I found you!
16 I have spread my couch with tapestry of dyed Egyptian linens.
17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18 Come, let’s drink our fill of love till morning! Let’s delight ourselves with love.
19 For my husband is not at home— he’s gone on a long journey.
20 He took a bag of money with him— he won’t come home until full moon.”
21 With her persistent pleading she entices him, with smooth talk she seduces him.
22 Suddenly he follows her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a stag bounding toward a trap,
23 till an arrow pierces its liver. Like a bird darting into a snare, he never considered his own soul!
24 Now then, sons, listen to me, pay attention to the words of my mouth.
25 Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray onto her paths.
26 For many are the victims she has brought down, and numerous are all her slain.
27 Her house is a highway to Sheol, leading down to the chambers of death.