7And now, O sons, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house;
9lest you give your honour to others
and your years to the merciless;
10lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
and your labours go to the house of an alien;
11and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
12and you say, "How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!
13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
14I was at the point of utter ruin
in the assembled congregation."
15Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
16Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
17Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
18Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19a lovely hind, a graceful doe.
Let her affection fill you at all times with delight,
be infatuated always with her love.
20Why should you be infatuated, my son, with a loose woman
and embrace the bosom of an adventuress?
21For a man's ways are before the eyes of Yahweh,
and he watches all his paths.
22The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is caught in the toils of his sin.
23He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is lost.
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