The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Book of Proverbs
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Chapter 5
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My son, here is good advice for thy heeding; listen to wise counsel,
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if thou wouldst be circumspect, if thou wouldst have ever on thy lips the maxims of prudence. First, give no credence to the wiles of woman;
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honey-sweet words the temptress✻ may use, all her talk be soothing as oil,
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but oh, the dregs of that cup are bitter; a two-edged sword brings no sharper pang.
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Death’s road she follows, her feet set towards the grave;
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far from the highway that leads to life is the maze she treads.
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Heed, then, my warning, and depart from it never;
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shun her company, do not go near her doors.
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Wouldst thou squander the pride of thy manhood upon heartless strangers like these?
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If thus thou wilt spend all thy hopes, bestow all thy pains, upon an alien home that is no home of thine,
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a time will come at last when health and strength shall be wasted away. Then thou wilt complain bitterly,
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Alas, why did I spurn every precept, reject every warning,
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unheard, unheeded, every lesson I was taught?
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No marvel, had I paid the last penalty, with the assembled people for my judges!✻
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Nay, drink, and drink deep, at thy own well, thy own cistern;
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thence let thy offspring abound, like waters from thy own fountain flowing through the public streets;✻
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only let them be thy own, let there be no commerce between thyself and strangers.
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A blessing on that fountain of thine! take thy pleasure with the bride thy manhood wins for thee.
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Thy own bride, gentle as a hind, graceful as a doe; be it her bosom that steals away thy senses with the delight of a lover that loves still.
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What, my son, wouldst thou yield to the wiles of a stranger, dally with her embraces that is none of thine?
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The Lord is watching, and knows what a man’s errand is, let him betake himself where he will.
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The sinner will be ensnared by his own guilt, caught in the toils of his own wrong-doing;
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doomed by his own incontinence, by his own great folly bemused.
