The Proverbs

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

 2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

 3 ¶For the ^alips of a ^bstrange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

 4 But her ^aend is ^bbitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.

 5 Her feet go down to ^adeath; her steps take hold on ^bhell.

 6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

 7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

 8 ^aRemove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

 9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

 10 Lest strangers be filled with thy ^awealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

 11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

 12 And say, How have I hated ^ainstruction, and my heart despised reproof;

 13 And have not ^aobeyed the voice of my ^bteachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

 14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

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

 16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

 17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.

 18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the ^awife of thy youth.

 19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her ^alove.

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

 21 For the ^aways of man are before the ^beyes of the Lord, and he ^cpondereth all his goings.

 22 ¶His own ^ainiquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the ^bcords of his sins.

 23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.