¹My son, keep my words, and treasure my commandments with you.

²Keep my commandments and live, and my instruction as the pupil of your eyes.

³Bind them upon your fingers; write them upon the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, you are my sister, and call understanding a relative.

⁵To keep you from a strange woman, from a foreign woman who smooths her words.

⁶For at the window of my house, behind my lattice, I looked down.

⁷And I saw among the simple ones, I discerned among the sons a youth lacking heart.

⁸Passing by in the street beside her corner, he strode in the direction of her house.

⁹In the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the pupil of the night and darkness.

¹⁰And look, a woman coming to meet him, in the garment of a prostitute and with a guarded heart.

¹¹She is boisterous and rebellious; her feet do not dwell in her house.

¹²At one time outside, at another time in the broad places, and beside every corner she lies in wait.

¹³She seizes him, kisses him, puts on a bold face, and says to him:

¹⁴Sacrifices of peace offerings are upon me; today I have paid my vows.

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

¹⁶I have spread my couch with coverlets, dark-hued tapestries of the yarn of Egypt.

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

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves in amours.

¹⁹For the man is not in his house; he has gone on a journey from afar.

²⁰He has taken the bag of money in his hand; on the day of the full moon he will come to his house.

²¹She turns him aside with her abundant persuasiveness; with the smoothness of her lips she compels him.

²²He goes after her suddenly, like an ox that goes to the slaughter, and like a fetter to the discipline of a fool.

²³until an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird hurrying into the trap, and he does not know that it concerns his being.

²⁴And now, children, listen to me, and pay attention to the words of my mouth.

²⁵Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways; do not wander in her paths.

²⁶For many are the slain she has felled, and numerous are all those she has killed.

²⁷Her house is the ways of Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.