1My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments by thee.
2Keep my commandments and my law, even as the apple of thine eye, and thou shalt live.
3Bind them upon thy fingers, write them in the table of thine heart.
4Say unto wisdom: Thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman:
5That she may keep thee from the strange woman, and from the harlot which giveth sweet words.
6For out of the window of my house I looked thorow the trellis,
7and beheld the simple people: and among other young folks I spied one young fool
8going over the streets, by the corner in the way toward the harlots house
9in the twilight of the evening, when it began now to be night and dark.
10And behold, there met him a woman in an harlot's apparel
11(a deceitful, wanton and an unsteadfast woman: whose feet could not abide in the house,
12now is she without, now in the streets, and lurketh in every corner.)
13She caught the young man, kissed him, and was not ashamed, saying:
14I had a vow to pay, and this day I perform it.
15Therefore came I forth to meet thee, that I might seek thy face, and so I have found thee.
16I have decked my bed with coverings and clothes of Egypt.
17My bed have I made to smell of Myrrh, Aloes, and Cinnamon.
18Come, let us lie together, and take our pleasure till it be day light.
19For the goodman is not at home, he is gone far off.
20He hath taken the bag of money with him: who can tell when he cometh home?
21Thus with many sweet words she overcome him, and with her flattering lips she wanne him.
22Immediately he followeth her, as it were an ox to the slaughter (and like as it were to the stocks, where fools are punished)
23so long till she hath wounded his liver with her dart: like as if a bird hasted to the snare, not knowing that the peril of his life lieth thereupon.
24Hear me now therefore, O my son, and mark the words of my mouth.
25Let not thine heart wander in her ways, and be not thou deceived in her paths.
26For many one hath she wounded and cast down, yea many a strong man hath she slain.
27Her houses is the way to hell, where men go down into the chambers of death.