Chapter Five

My son, pay heed to my wisdom and listen closely to my words of understanding so that you may practice discretion and by your speech conserve this knowledge.  For the lips of the exotic woman are as sweet as honey and her speech is as smooth as oil, but in the end she is as bitter as gall, as sharp as a two-edged sword.  Her feet descend to death and her steps lead to the grave.  She gives no thought to the path her life should take and doesn’t realize that her ways meander.

Now then, my sons, listen to me and do not deviate from what I saying.  Stay far away from her.  Don’t go near the door of her house.  If you do, you may sacrifice the vitality of your youth to ruthless strangers who will drain you of your wealth.  You will toil to enrich the house of a stranger and at the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and body are wasted away.   You will lament, “How I hated instruction.  How my mind despised being corrected.  I wouldn’t listen to my teachers or pay attention to those who instructed me.  Now I have come to the brink of ruin in the presence of the entire community.”

Drink water from your own cistern, fresh water from your own well.  Let not your fountains overflow onto the street and stream into the public square.  Keep its water for yourself alone and do not share it with strangers.  Let your fountain be blessed — may you fulfill your desires with the wife of your youth.  She is a loving hind, a graceful roe.  Let her body always satisfy you and may you always be thrilled by her love.  Why excite yourself, my son, with a strange woman; why make love to a someone you don’t know?

For a man’s conduct is under the eye of Jehovah, who examines all a person’s actions.  The evil deeds of the wicked will ensnare him and he will be bound by the cords of his sins.  Because he has not received instruction, he will die, having been led astray by the magnitude of his foolishness.