⁷ Hear me now therefore, O ye sons, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. ⁸ Remove thy way far from her, and do not come near the door of her house, ⁹ lest thou give thine honour unto others and thy years unto the cruel, ¹⁰ lest strangers be filled with thy wealth, and thy labours be in the house of a stranger, ¹¹ and thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed ¹² and say, How have I hated chastening and my heart despised reproof ¹³ and have not obeyed the voice of those who chastened me, nor inclined my ear to those that instructed me! ¹⁴ I have been in almost every kind of evil, in the midst of society and of the congregation.

¹⁵ Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well. ¹⁶ Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of thy waters in the streets. ¹⁷ Let them be only thine own and not for strangers with thee. ¹⁸ Thy fountain shall be blessed; and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 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, without eyes for anyone else. ²⁰ And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a woman belonging to someone else, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? ²¹ For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he weighs all his goings. ²² His own iniquities shall take hold of the wicked, and he shall be imprisoned with the cords of his sins. ²³ He shall die because he did not submit to chastening; and due to the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.