1) My son! listen to my wisdom, and incline your ear to my understanding,
2) to maintain prudence, and so that your mouth may retain knowledge. [Do not listen to a flattering woman;]
3) for the mouth of another man’s wife drips honey, and her speech is softer than oil;
4) but the consequences from it are bitter, like wormwood, sharp, like a two-edged sword;
5) her feet descend to death, her feet reach the underworld.
6) If you wanted to comprehend the path of her life, then her ways are fickle, and you will not recognize them.
7) So, children, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8) Keep your path farther from her and do not come close to the doors of her house,
9) so as not to give your health to others and your years to the tormentor;
10) so that strangers are not satisfied with your power, and your labors are not for someone else’s house.
11) And you will groan later, when your flesh and your body are exhausted, -
12) and you will say: “Why did I hate instruction, and my heart despised reproof?
13) and I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, I did not incline my ear to my teachers:
14) I almost fell into all sorts of evil among the congregation and society!”
15) Drink the water from your cistern and the water that flows from your well.
16) Let not your springs overflow in the streets, nor streams of water over the squares;
17) let them belong to you alone, and not to strangers with you.
18) May your source be blessed; and be comforted by the wife of your youth,
19) a kind doe and a beautiful chamois: let her breasts intoxicate you at all times, enjoy her love constantly.
20) And why do you, my son, get carried away by strangers and embrace someone else’s breasts?
21) For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He measures all his paths.
22) The lawless one is caught by his own iniquities, and he is kept in the bonds of his sin:
23) he dies without guidance, and is lost due to the multitude of his madness.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru