Proverbs 7

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The Adulteress’ Trap

My son, keep my words

And treasure my commandments within you.

Keep my commandments and live,

And my law as the apple of your eye.

Bind them on your fingers;

Write them on the tablet of your heart.

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”

And call understanding your intimate friend;

In order to keep you from the strange woman,

From the foreign woman who flatters with her words.

For at the window of my house

I looked out through my lattice,

And I saw among the simple,

And discerned among the sons

A young man lacking a heart of wisdom,

Passing through the street near her corner;

And he strides along the way to her house,

In the twilight, in the evening of that day,

In the middle of the night, and in the thick darkness.

And behold, a woman comes to meet him,

Dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart.

She is boisterous and rebellious,

Her feet do not dwell at home;

Stepping in the streets, stepping in the squares,

And near every corner she lies in wait.

So she seizes him and kisses him

And with a brazen face she says to him:

“The sacrifices of peace offerings are with me;

Today I paid my vows.

Therefore I have come out to meet you,

To seek your face earnestly, and I have found you.

I have spread my couch with coverings,

With colored linens of Egypt.

I have sprinkled my bed

With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

Come, then, let us drink our fill as lovers until morning;

Let us delight ourselves with the pleasures of love.

For my husband is not at home,

He has gone on a journey far away;

He took a bag of silver in his hand,

On the day of the full moon he will come home.”

With her abundant persuasions she entices him;

With her flattering lips she drives him to herself.

He suddenly follows her

As an ox goes to the slaughter,

Or as one in fetters to the discipline of an ignorant fool,

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.

So now, my sons, listen to me,

And pay attention to the words of my mouth.

Do not let your heart go astray into her ways,

Do not wander into her pathways.

For many are the slain whom she has cast down,

And numerous are all those killed by her.

The ways to Sheol are in her house,

Descending to the chambers of death.

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