CHAPTER 7
1 My son, keep thou my words; and keep my behests to thee.
2 Keep thou my behests, and thou shalt live; and my law, as the apple of thine eye.
3 Bind thou it in thy fingers; write thou it in the tables of thine heart.
4 Say thou to wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call thou prudence thy love.
5 That it keep thee from a strange woman; and from an alien woman, that maketh her words sweet.
6 For she saith, For why from the window of mine house, by the lattice, I beheld;
7 and I see little children, that is, fools that have little wit. I behold a young man coward [or the sorry-hearted young man],
8 that passeth by [or through] the streets, beside the corner; and he goeth nigh the way of her house,
9 in dark time, when the day draweth to night, in the darkness and mist in the night.
10 And lo! a woman, made ready with ornament of an whore to deceive souls, meeteth him,
11 and she is a jangler, and going about, and unpatient of rest, and may not stand in the house with her feet;
12 and now withoutforth, now in [the] streets, now beside [the] corners, she ambusheth.
13 And she taketh, and kisseth the young man; and flattereth with wooing cheer, that is, unrestfully, and without shame, and saith,
14 I owed sacrifices for health; today I have yielded my vows.
15 Therefore I went out into thy meeting, and I desired to see thee; and I have found thee.
16 I have made my bed with cords, I have arrayed it with tapets painted [or with painted tapets] of Egypt;
17 I have besprinkled my bed with myrrh, and aloes, and canel.
18 Come thou, be we filled with touching of teats, and use we embracings that be coveted; till the day begin to be clear.
19 For mine husband is not in his house; he is gone a full long way.
20 He took with him a bag of money; he shall turn again into his house in the day of [the] full moon.
21 She bound him with many words; and she drew forth him with flatterings of lips.
22 Anon he as an ox led to slain sacrifice pursueth [or followeth] her, and as a jolly lamb and unknowing; and the fool knoweth not, that he is drawn to bonds,
23 till an arrow pierce his maw. As if a bird hasteth to the snare; and knoweth not, that it is done of the peril of his life.
24 Now therefore, my son, hear thou me; and perceive the words of my mouth.
25 Lest thy soul be drawn away in the ways of her; neither be thou deceived in the paths of her.
26 For she hath cast down many wounded men; and all [the] strongest men were slain of her.
27 The ways of hell is her house; and pierce into the inner things of death.