Warning Against The Strange Woman

[1] My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. [2] Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. [3] Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. [4] Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman: [5] That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words. [6] For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, [7] And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, [8] Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, [9] In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: [10] And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. [11] (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: [12] Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.) [13] So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, [14] I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows. [15] Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee. [16] I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. [17] I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. [18] Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. [19] For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey: [20] He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed. [21] With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. [22] He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; [23] Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.

To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;

To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.

For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.

And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.

Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.

My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:

• Water

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.