• The Adulteress’ Trap

  • 1 My son, keep my words And treasure my commandments within you.
  • 2 Keep my commandments and live, And my law as the apple of your eye.
  • 3 Bind them on your fingers; Write them on the tablet of your heart.
  • 4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” And call understanding your intimate friend;
  • 5 In order to keep you from the strange woman, From the foreign woman who flatters with her words.
  • 6 For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice,
  • 7 And I saw among the simple, And discerned among the sons A young man lacking a heart of wisdom,
  • 8 Passing through the street near her corner; And he strides along the way to her house,
  • 9 In the twilight, in the evening of that day, In the middle of the night, and in the thick darkness.
  • 10 And behold, a woman comes to meet him, Dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart.
  • 11 She is boisterous and rebellious, Her feet do not dwell at home;
  • 12 Stepping in the streets, stepping in the squares, And near every corner she lies in wait.
  • 13 So she seizes him and kisses him And with a brazen face she says to him:
  • 14 “The sacrifices of peace offerings are with me; Today I paid my vows.
  • 15 “Therefore I have come out to meet you, To seek your face earnestly, and I have found you.
  • 16 “I have spread my couch with coverings, With colored linens of Egypt.
  • 17 “I have sprinkled my bed With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
  • 18 “Come, then, let us drink our fill as lovers until morning; Let us delight ourselves with the pleasures of love.
  • 19 “For my husband is not at home, He has gone on a journey far away;
  • 20 He took a bag of silver in his hand, On the day of the full moon he will come home.”
  • 21 With her abundant persuasions she entices him; With her flattering lips she drives him to herself.
  • 22 He suddenly follows her As an ox goes to the slaughter, Or as one in fetters to the discipline of an ignorant fool,
  • 23 Until an arrow pierces through his liver; As a bird hastens to the snare, And he does not know that it will cost him his soul.
  • 24 So now, my sons, listen to me, And pay attention to the words of my mouth.
  • 25 Do not let your heart go astray into her ways, Do not wander into her pathways.
  • 26 For many are the slain whom she has cast down, And numerous are all those killed by her.
  • 27 The ways to Sheol are in her house, Descending to the chambers of death.