Sprüche 7

1. ¹My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
2. ²Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of thine eye.
3. ³Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thy heart.
4. ⁴Say unto wisdom: 'Thou art my sister', and call understanding thy kinswoman;
5. ⁵That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the alien woman that maketh smooth her words.
6. ⁶For at the window of my house I looked forth through my lattice;
7. ⁷And I beheld among the thoughtless ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,
8. ⁸Passing through the street near her corner, and he went the way to her house;
9. ⁹In the twilight, in the evening of the day, in the blackness of night and the darkness.
10. ¹⁰And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and wily of heart.
11. ¹¹She is riotous and rebellious, her feet abide not in her house;
12. ¹²Now she is in the streets, now in the broad places, and lieth in wait at every corner.
13. ¹³So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face she said unto him:
14. ¹⁴'Sacrifices of peace-offerings were due from me; this day have I paid my vows.
15. ¹⁵Therefore came I forth to meet thee, to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
16. ¹⁶I have decked my couch with coverlets, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.
17. ¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18. ¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning; let us solace ourselves with loves.
19. ¹⁹For my husband is not at home, he is gone a long journey;
20. ²⁰He hath taken the bag of money with him; he will come home at the full moon.'
21. ²¹With her much fair speech she causeth him to yield, with the blandishment of her lips she enticeth him away.
22. ²²He goeth after her straightway, as an ox that goeth to the slaughter, or as one in fetters to the correction of the fool;
23. ²³Till an arrow strike through his liver; as a bird hasteneth to the snare-- and knoweth not that it is at the cost of his life.
24. ²⁴Now therefore, O ye children, hearken unto me, and attend to the words of my mouth.
25. ²⁵Let not thy heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
26. ²⁶For she hath cast down many wounded; yea, a mighty host are all her slain.
27. ²⁷Her house is the way to the nether-world, going down to the chambers of death.

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