My son, attend unto my wisdom;
Incline thine ear to my understanding:
That thou mayest preserve discretion,
And that thy lips may keep knowledge.
For the lips of a strange woman drop honey,
And her mouth is smoother than oil:
But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death;
Her steps take hold on Sheol;
{Or, Lest thou find the level &c. Or, Lest thou weigh carefully the path of life}So that she findeth not the level path of life:
Her ways are unstable, and {Or, thou canest not know them}she knoweth it not.
Now therefore, my sons, hearken unto me,
And depart not from the words of my mouth.
Remove thy way far from her,
And come not nigh the door of her house;
Lest thou give thine honor unto others,
And thy years unto the cruel;
Lest strangers be filled with thy {Or, wealth}strength,
And thy labors be in the house of an alien,
And thou {Or, groan}mourn at thy latter end,
When thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
And say, How have I hated instruction,
And my heart despised reproof;
Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers,
Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
I was well-nigh in all evil
In the midst of the assembly and congregation.
Drink waters out of thine own cistern,
And running waters out of thine own well.
{Or, Let}Should thy springs be dispersed abroad,
And streams of water in the streets?
Let them be for thyself alone,
And not for strangers with thee.
Let thy fountain be blessed;
And rejoice in the wife of thy youth.
As a loving hind and a pleasant doe,
Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times;
And {Hebrew: go astray.}be thou ravished always with her love.
For why shouldest thou, my son, {Hebrew: go astray.}be ravished with a strange woman,
And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
For the ways of man are before the eyes of Jehovah;
And he {Or, weigheth carefully}maketh level all his paths.
His own iniquities shall take the wicked,
And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.
He shall die for lack of instruction;
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Querverweise zu Sprüche 5,22 Spr 5,22
And these lay wait for their own blood;They lurk privily for their own lives.
And I find more bitter than death the woman {Or, who is a snare, and her heart is as nets}whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.
I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators;
Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way,And be filled with their own devices.
{Or, not altogether with the fornicators &c.}not at all meaning with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world:
The integrity of the upright shall guide them;But the perverseness of the treacherous shall destroy them.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, {Greek: heresies.}parties,
envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I {Or, tell you plainly}forewarn you, even as I did {Or, tell you plainly}forewarn you, that they who practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
The righteousness of the perfect shall {Or, make straight (or, plain)}direct his way;But the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.
For this ye know of a surety, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
He hath made a pit, and digged it,And is fallen into the ditch which he made.
Let no man deceive you with empty words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience.
His mischief shall return upon his own head,And his violence shall come down upon his own pate.
Let marriage be had in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
The nations are sunk down in the pit that they made:In the net which they hid is their own foot taken.
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter, that thou hast forsaken Jehovah thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts.
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the {Hebrew: heart.}understanding.
My people ask counsel at their stock, and their staff declareth unto them; for the spirit of whoredom hath caused them to err, and they have played the harlot, departing from under their God.
They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters play the harlot, and your {Or, daughter-in-law}brides commit adultery.
I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your {Or, daughter-in-law}brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and they sacrifice with the prostitutes; and the people that doth not understand shall be overthrown.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life.