1: My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my
understanding: |
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2: That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep
knowledge. |
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3:
For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her
mouth is smoother than oil: |
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4: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.
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5: Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
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6: Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are
moveable, that thou canst not know them. |
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7: Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the
words of my mouth. |
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8: Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her
house: |
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9: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto
the cruel: |
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10: Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be
in the house of a stranger; |
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11: And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are
consumed, |
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12: And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised
reproof; |
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13: And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined
mine ear to them that instructed me! |
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14: I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and
assembly. |
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15: Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out
of thine own well. |
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16: Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters
in the streets. |
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17: Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
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18: Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy
youth. |
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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
love. |
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20: And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman,
and embrace the bosom of a stranger? |
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21: For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he
pondereth all his goings. |
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22: His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he
shall be holden with the cords of his sins. |
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23: He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his
folly he shall go astray. |